


Earphones

by jhopesflower



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cute, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Build, TaoRis - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-05-22 05:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6067522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jhopesflower/pseuds/jhopesflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tao couldn't stand it when people interrupted his music playing from his earbuds, but Kris doesn't stop bothering him, and Tao ends up not too annoyed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction! There hasn't been a lot of Taoris fanfictions lately, so I finally decided to try it out. I'm not in college yet (next year tho) so don't judge too harshly about my glorified descriptions about college. Comments are appreciated, hope you enjoy it!

Tao was seven minutes early to his very first college class. He decided to pick a seat to the side so most people would ignore him, and he would be able to escape quickly when class ended. He had his earphones in, as always, so he could block out the other students shuffling into class; he was as antisocial as a person could get.

  
Tao always had difficulty opening up to anyone, and many people stayed away from him because of his wealth, intelligence, and “scary” looks. When he thought “scary,” he assumed everyone referred to his tall height, straight face, pointed eyes, and DARK under-eye bags. His only friend was Sehun, someone who also had the same “scary” aura as Tao, and who just HAD to get accepted into a college two hundred miles away from Tao.

  
_“Try and be more social at college! I can’t be your only friend for the rest of your life,” Sehun jokingly said to Tao on their very last day together before college began. They decided to hang out at the mall so Tao could pick out the latest fashion before restricting his wardrobe to whatever he could pack._

  
_“Mmm,” Tao mused, as he looked through the Gucci men’s section._

  
_“I’m serious, Tao! You’re in college now so you can definitely turn a new leaf and open up to those around you,” Sehun stated._

  
_“Like that’ll happen,” Tao retorted._

  
_Sehun sighed and pat Tao on the head and messed his hair up, which gave Sehun a death glare from Tao, because anyone and everyone knew how Tao felt about his appearance._

  
As Tao looked back at the memory, he never even realized someone had sat right next to him until the new person took out one of Tao’s earbuds and stuck it in his ear.

  
Tao turned around very quickly to find the idiot that interrupted his music only to meet a person that was actually taller than him. As Tao looked incredulously at the person, he noticed that he had slightly long chestnut hair and dark eyes, and the fact that Tao’s earbud was STILL IN HIS EAR.

  
“Can you please give me my earbud back,” Tao said, gritting his teeth.

  
The mystery person didn't respond because of Tao’s music. He seemed to enjoy it, at least enough to not notice Tao’s death glare at his head.

  
“Excuse me, can you give me my earbud back?” Tao asked more loudly, receiving some stares from the other students right around him.

  
The other student finally opened his eyes. “Your music is actually really tight, man. What’s your name?” Tao’s earbud still hasn't been returned yet.

  
“Tao. Now can I have my earbud back, please?” Tao asked, trying not to rip this person’s head off.

  
“Oh, my name is Kris. Here you go!” Kris said happily as he handed his earbud over to Tao.

  
Tao wanted to sanitize his earbud or something before returning it to its rightful place, in Tao’s ear, so he vigorously wiped it on his shirt before putting it back in. Sadly, his music was interrupted again by Kris’s talking.

  
“First day of class, huh. I’m nervous; I really hope I do better here than in high school. I only have a couple new friends so far,” Kris said. “ _I wonder why_ ,” thought Tao

  
“I haven’t even met my roommate yet, he was asleep when I finally arrived at school late last night and was gone by the time I woke up. He kept his side of the room really plain and clean; I hope he’s a nice guy.” Kris continued. Tao realized that Kris never stopped talking until the professor came to the front and began teaching.

  
The first class was boring; Tao already knew everything that they needed to know about Music Theory already. Tao had been composing music for at least three years now, if he didn't know music theory by now, his music wouldn't have been noticed like it had been.

  
He kept one earbud in throughout class to listen slightly to the professor. Throughout the class, he noticed that Kris fell asleep within the first five minutes. As Tao kept looking at Kris, he noticed his mouth slightly open, a little bit of drool coming out of it. Tao chuckled internally, “ _so much for doing better in college than in high school._ ”

  
By the time class was over, Kris was still sound asleep. Tao thought about whether he should wake him up or not. He knew he should’ve been a good person and help Kris out, but he also could care less about the giant idiot that took his earbuds out. After a thirty second debate in his head, he decided to wake him up. He shook Kris’s shoulder slightly, “Kris,” Tao called softly. Kris finally began to whine and woke up.

  
Once the fact that he slept through the entire class dawned on him, Kris looked horrified. “Oh god, I fell asleep this entire time.” He looked up at Tao to see him trying to hold back a laugh.

  
“Don’t make fun of me!” Kris pouted, which didn't work for his tough-looking face, as he stood up. Tao thought of Kris as a big puppy, make that a giant puppy.

Tao returned to his stoic face, put his earbuds back in, and began walking away from Kris, but Kris continued to follow Tao.

  
“So where are you going?” Kris asked Tao, as he tried to keep up with Tao’s fast pace.

  
“Back to my dorm, probably gonna take a nap,” Tao said softly as he picked up the pace.

  
“Oh cool, I’ll go with you! Maybe I’ll finally meet my roommate now.” Kris stated.

  
Tao stayed silent for a couple of seconds before Kris began talking again. “I’m in the South dorm, room A3, what room are you in?”

  
Tao tried to keep his shock on the inside and ignored Kris. “ _He’s in the same room as me? Oh god._ ”

  
Kris kept chatting about his classes and schedule until they both reached the same dorm room.

  
Kris was surprised, but happy because he thought Tao was interested in seeing his dorm. Kris believed he made a new friend, until he noticed Tao pulled out an identical key as his. He finally put two and two together. “You’re my roommate?!” Kris asked, confused.

  
“Seems like it,” Tao replied tersely. He wasn't too happy about the current set up, but at least he knew that he wasn't living with some crazy bum, or at least Kris didn't seem like a crazy bum.

  
Kris jumped around happily. “Yay! Now we can spend more time together and hang out more! I wanna see your schedule!”

  
Tao dug out his schedule from his leather bag and quietly handed the schedule over the Kris.

  
“Wow! We have almost all of our breaks together! We have a couple of different classes though, because you’re studying in music composition while I’m focusing on music performance,” Kris said, as he handed Tao’s schedule back.

  
Tao just hummed as he plopped himself onto his bed with his earbuds still in. It was going to be one interesting year.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I actually got a kudos already!! So thank you: Allybabe747. Since this is my last day of winter break, before school starts TT^TT, I wanted to get one more chapter in. Hopefully, I'll keep updating, and hopefully you'll enjoy the chapter!!

After just two days of living with Kris, Tao was quite done. Kris had a tendency to never wake up on time and take long naps, and because their classes were always at the same time, Tao felt responsible for waking him up to show up on time. After doing this seven times in the span of two days, Tao had had enough and decided to invest in a loud alarm clock for Kris. Once Tao finished lecturing Kris on waking up by himself, he handed Kris the alarm clock he bought.

“You got this for me?” Kris asked, as he held the bulky clock in his hands.

“Yeah, stop making me wake you up,” Tao grumbled, taking the clock from Kris’s hands and set it to 7:30 a.m. “ _If he doesn’t wake up with this, I’ll be surprised he can even wake up at all._ ” Tao recalled the memory of going to the college store and testing out alarm clocks; the alarm clock he bought was so terrifyingly loud that Tao almost cried and wet his pants on the spot, but he would never admit that to anyone.

Kris took the alarm clock back and set it on his table. “If you say so. Do you wanna head off to lunch now? I’m STARVING.”

Another thing Tao learned over the past two days was that Kris could eat basically anything and everything. Tao was surprised to see that Kris wasn’t two hundred pounds fatter, considering how much he ate as a “snack”: five large Hershey bars, two six packs of Oreos, and a liter of soda. Tao had been watching his weight for a very long time, so he was actually a little bit jealous of how much Kris could eat without gaining weight.

As they walked to the South dining room, conveniently right next the south dorm of where they lived, Kris kept talking nonstop about his recent music performance class. Tao had one earbud in, so he could block out what Kris was saying without looking TOO disinterested, but Kris noticed.

“Why are you always listening to music? Socializing is good too, you know,” Kris whined a little.

“I like my music,” Tao replied. At this point, Kris was already used to Tao’s stoic face and curt responses, so it didn’t faze him too much.

“I wanna listen too!” Kris said, as he took the spare earbud in Tao’s hand and put it in his ear. This had been the second time Tao’s earbud was unwillingly taken from him; Tao wasn’t a happy camper.

They walked and got their dinner in silence because Kris wanted to listen to Tao’s music, and because Tao didn’t talk much in general. When they finally sat down and started eating, a couple of Kris’s new friends came over and began talking to Kris. Kris returned the earbud to Tao so he could focus on talking and eating, so Tao put his earbud into his ear (after vigorously wiping it again) to block out the conversations.

After ten minutes, Tao didn’t feel hungry anymore and threw his remaining lunch out. Tao returned to the table to tell Kris he was going back to the dorm room to do homework, but Tao saw that Kris was in the middle of a heated debate about whether Iggy Azalea was a legit artist or not, and decided not to get involved.

Once Tao returned to the empty dorm, he took his earbuds out and connected his phone to his set of speakers to play his music out loud. He enjoyed doing his homework surrounded by his music, so once everything was set, he turned his attention to the twenty sheets of music theory homework and sighed. Even though he was good at music theory, he knew that doing twenty sheets of straight music theory would be tedious.

After thirty minutes, Kris was sure that he proved his point about how “Iggy Aziggy” was not a legit artist, so he looked for Tao to head back to the dorm room. He looked for Tao around the table, near the cashiers and in the bathroom, but to no avail. Kris assumed Tao went back to the dorm room, hopefully, and started walking back to the dorm room himself.

Kris was alone with his thoughts and started thinking about Tao. “ _He’s really quiet, and he cares a LOT about how he looks. Even though his side of the room is clean, his closet and wardrobe is filled to the brim with expensive clothes. Where does he even get all of that money?_ ” He thought about his extremely pointed eyes and dark under eye bags. “ _Does he not sleep, or are those just a part of him?_ ”

When Kris finally made his way back to the dorm room, he opened the door to see Tao slumped over his homework, sleeping, with loud music blasting from the speakers. Kris chuckled and decided to move Tao to the bed because that position was definitely NOT comfortable to sleep, Kris would know, from doing it a couple of times within the past two days. Once he covered Tao up with the blankets, Kris decided to start working on his own music theory homework. He didn’t lower or turn of Tao’s music, because personally, Kris actually really liked it.

After five minutes into working on his theory homework, Kris regretted sleeping during class on that very first day. Kris had a very loose understanding of music theory when he went into class, and because he fell asleep, he had NO IDEA about what was going on. He knew he would have to ask Tao for help when he wakes up. Meanwhile, Kris decided to relax his eyes before moving onto his recording class homework; all of a sudden, he heard a song he never even heard before in his life. It had a really nice beat, and whoever sang the vocals had a really versatile voice. The voice changed from very light and airy when he sang to very deep when he rapped; Kris wasn’t even sure if it was the same singer throughout the entire song. He decided to check out who sang the song, so he stood up to reach Tao’s phone. Once he pressed the home button on Tao’s phone, Kris saw that artist’s name and album cover and could not believe his eyes: Z. Tao, with Tao posing in extravagant clothing in a corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tao's first album is soo good (I'm biased). The song Kris listened to is Yesterday, by Tao.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm using the fanfiction as an excuse to procrastinate now, sighs.

Kris couldn’t even believe his eyes. Tao, the person that barely spoke two words at a time to Kris, made a full length album, and while procrastinating, Kris searched up the album online to find out that it was super popular in China.

Near the end of Kris’s research and fascination, Tao finally woke up from his nap to find that his album was playing on full blast. His eyes widened as he jumped off the bed to quickly change to something else, hoping that Kris didn’t suspect anything.

“I DIDN’T KNOW YOU MADE YOUR OWN ALBUM!!” Kris exclaimed immediately after Tao sat down to work on his theory homework again. Tao laid his head on his desk, “ _Oh god._ ”

“Uhh, yeah.” Tao said, curtly, as lifted his head up, trying to get on a different topic.

“Your music is actually really good! Did you write and record it all by yourself?” Kris asked, not letting up on the subject.

“Yeah, there’s uhh… I have uhh… a studio back home,” Tao said, quietly.

“That’s amazing!! Can I listen to more?”

“Sure, I guess.” Tao didn’t really have any objections to Kris listening to his music; he just hoped that Kris would keep it down low and wouldn’t keep badgering him about the subject.

Tao spoke too soon, the badgering continued: “I didn’t even know you could sing! You should take some music performance classes, not just music composition.”

“I’d rather just focus on composition for now.” Tao said, turning back to his theory homework, hoping Kris would stop bothering him, but that only served to remind Kris about his current music theory homework dilemma.

“OH! You remember how I slept on the first day of music theory right?” Kris asked; Tao laughed internally. “Well I _really_ need help with the homework because I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Mmm, I guess I could help you out,” Tao considered making Kris pay for tutoring, but considering they just entered college, Tao decided to leave him be, for now. “We have twenty pages due in basically five days, so we can just do four pages a day together, okay?”

Kris was astounded at how quickly Tao agreed to help; Kris thought it would take much more convincing and possible black mailing in order to get Tao’s cooperation. “Okay! Thank you so much, I’ll try not to fall asleep next class.”

Tao just nodded his head and motioned for Kris to sit at his desk so they could begin working. Right now were the basics of music theory: chord progressions and filling chord values. Tao found it a breeze, but from past experience in tutoring music theory (Sehun), some people found it excruciating.

Tao didn’t like giving answers away, because no one would gain from that, so he asked Kris questions along the way, but it was getting more tedious as they went along. “What note is this,” “what chord interval is this,” “how do we complete the chord to make it a perfect authentic cadence;” the more Tao tried to ask Kris, the more confused Kris became.

“I know that the note is a C, but why does E go there?” Kris asked, trying not to bash his head against the table.

“We want a C major chord, so the notes of a C major chord are?” Tao asked, hoping Kris could answer the most basic question.

“E and G…” Kris answered, hoping he got it right.

“Good job!” Tao exclaimed, trying to give Kris some praise.

“Ohh, that makes a lot more sense then.” Kris said, filling in the notes.

Simple instructions like that happened all throughout the four pages; after two hours, Tao and Kris finally finished and were ready to throw their pencils out the window.

“Thank the lord we’re finally done!” Kris said, stretching his back out. Tao nodded and smiled, also happy that music theory was finally over, for today at least. He checked his phone to see what time it was: 4:30 p.m, not quite time for dinner yet.

“Thank you so much for helping me out, Tao. If you weren’t here, I probably would’ve been staring at those black little spoons for days without knowing what to do,” Kris joked. He also noted the time. “Do you want to go to dinner yet, or is it too early now?”

“I think it’s too early now; I was going to go out for a jog because there’s still light outside,” Tao said quietly, gathering his running clothes so he could change.

“JOG?? You do that for fun? HOW,” Kris cried out. He could barely walk up the three flights of stairs leading to the dorm room without wheezing.

“I don’t think it’s too bad, and it’s healthy. You should come,” Tao said, already leaving the dorm room to get changed in the bathroom.

Kris contemplated for a minute; it was the first time Tao invited him to do something, but it was jogging: something that Kris doesn’t do voluntarily, basically ever. Thinking back now, Tao had a surprisingly good build and was very toned for someone who looked thin. Kris in comparison was only taller, but he was not toned, not in the very least. Kris decided to go jogging with Tao. He was already wearing comfortable clothes, so he decided not to change.

When Tao returned to the room, he saw Kris getting ready to go. Tao didn’t expect him to come along so he was quite surprised but didn’t show much of an outward reaction. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yep!” Kris flashed a toothy smile, but his eyes held the pain that he was going to feel later on.

 

* * *

 

 

Thankfully, their university had a lot of green space, and it was pretty big, so there was a lot of room for jogging. Tao always remained ahead of Kris, ears plugged in with music, but he always looked back to make sure Kris wasn’t too far behind. After twenty minutes, Kris looked exhausted, so Tao decided to make a water stop next to a lake.

Kris panted, bent over, hands on his knees. “How do you do this,” he breathed in sharply, “for _fun_.” He looked up and saw Tao still jogging in place.

“I don’t find it so bad. It’s healthy. We can go back now if you want, but that means a twenty minute jog back.” Tao answered.

Kris went to the water fountain and just stood there as the water ran down his face. Tao smiled a little. “We can walk for ten minutes and then run the rest of the way, if that makes you feel a little better.”

Kris got up from the water fountain and tried to shake his head dry, looking like a very large dog. “Yeah, I think that would be the best… for me.”

Tao began walking back, ears plugged in, assuming that Kris was following him. Suddenly, Kris caught up to Tao and removed an earbud to listen to Tao’s music. Since it was the third time, Tao didn’t think much of it and kept walking. By the time ten minutes came up, Tao began running ahead of Kris, ripping his earbud out of Kris’s ear. Tao looked back and saw a very surprised and angry Kris that was beginning to pick up speed. Tao’s eyes widened and he turned around to focus on running faster. After five minutes, he looked back again, hoping that Kris didn’t gain that much distance, but he didn’t see Kris anywhere.

He stopped and called out for Kris. “Kris, where are you? I’m sorry for ripping the earbud out of your ear!” Tao started walking back and looked around. All of a sudden, a force pushed Tao down, and he yelped before swallowing a mouthful of grass.

“HA, I AM VICTORIOUS,” a very triumphant Kris said as he stood over Tao.

Tao spit out the grass, pat his clothes to clean them, crossed his arms, and pouted. “I can’t believe you did that. I thought you were hurt or something.”

“Hmm, you should’ve thought more before ripping an earbud out of my ear and running away,” Kris joked but said more softly, because he started feeling a little bad. Tao seemed quite traumatized from the scare Kris gave him. He wondered how Tao would react to a simple horror movie and haunted house.  “You didn’t get hurt right?” Kris asked as he looked over Tao.

Tao brushed the grass off his knees. “Nah. Let’s go back to eat dinner and change out of these smelly clothes.” Tao began running again, making sure Kris was next to him at a steady pace so that they could listen to music together.

 

* * *

 

 

They quickly changed out of their clothes and made their way to dinner, still listening to music together. Once they got their dinner and sat down, a bunch of Kris’s friends came over again. Tao decided to take his earbud back to plug them out again, but before he could do that, Kris tried to start talking about Tao’s album. “GUYS, Tao has…” Kris trailed off when he noticed Tao looking down and almost scared.

“What does Tao have??” One of Kris’s friends asked, noticing that Kris stopped talking.

“Uhh…” Kris glanced at Tao again. “He has some mad music theory skills! He taught me half of what I missed from music theory in just two hours.” Tao looked at Kris again, showing a very grateful expression towards Kris and mouthed a “ _thank you._ ”

Kris continued talking to his friends about Tao’s tutoring as Tao ate his dinner. He felt like Kris could read more of his expressions that any of his older classmates could; they always whispered about Tao’s straight and scary face, but it seemed like Kris didn’t have any trouble understanding Tao’s emotions. The only person that could really read Tao’s expressions was Sehun. Tao just realized that he got close to Kris in a very short period of time and was thankful for gaining a friend in such a short period of time.

After fifteen minutes were over, Tao threw the rest of his dinner out and told Kris he was going back to his dorm room. Once Tao got back to his dorm, his cell phone rang: Oh Sehun. Tao quickly answered.

“TAOOOO, HOW’S MY BABY PANDA DOING WITHOUT ME IN SCARY COLLEGE,” Sehun cooed; he could already feel Tao’s scowl through the phone and laughed.

“I’m doing fine. I thought we already got over that stupid nickname,” Tao said through gritted teeth. The only reason why Sehun called Tao a baby panda was because of Tao’s dark under eye circles, resembling those of a panda.

“Do you have any friends yet??” Sehun asked, wondering why he even said it because already assumed that the answer was no.

“Yeah,” Tao responded.

“Oh, really?? Who?” Sehun was shocked; it was only two days into college.

“He’s my roommate, and we talk a lot, so I guess we’re kinda friends,” Tao said, knowing Sehun didn’t expect that he had such a _SMOOTH_ friend.

“Good job my baby panda!” Sehun said, amiably.

“Shut it, baby face,” Tao responded, using an old nickname of Sehun’s. Tao could feel Sehun’s pout through the phone and grinned.

The conversation between the two friends continued for twenty minutes, until Kris came back to the dorm room.

“I have to go now, Sehun. My roommate is back.” Tao said.

“Oh, your new friend! I have to meet him some day. Introduce us sometime!” Sehun said.

“Hmm, maybe. Bye Sehun.” Tao responded.

“Bye, my baby panda!” Sehun quickly ended the call before Tao could respond.

“Ugh,” Tao said, as he put his phone down and made his way to his desk. “Sorry about that,” Tao said to Kris.

“No, it’s fine! I don’t mind phone calls,” Kris said. “ _I’m surprised he even had other people to talk to besides me,_ ” Kris thought, forgetting that it was a bit rude.

Tao began working on the rest of his music theory homework. He decided to go ahead of Kris so that Tao could make sure all of his answers were correct before possibly feeding Kris misinformation. “Oh, thanks for not telling your friends about my album; I really appreciated it.” Tao said, remembering Kris’s act of kindness.

“It’s no problem! You can tell them when you’re ready, or they’ll just find out when you become a superstar.” Kris responded.

Tao laughed out loud; the prospect of him becoming a superstar seemed so alien and strange that he couldn’t help but laugh.

Kris stared at Tao; he couldn’t believe that Tao just laughed out loud. It was also a little high pitched, contrasting with his typical low voice. Kris couldn’t help but feel that Tao was warming up to Kris, slowly, but surely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys don't mind the slow build! I talked a lot about music theory because I'm taking that this year and needed an outlet to let out my anger. I wrote a little more this time because I piled up more parts before editing it. Hopefully, it'll get longer and longer each chapter, because I, too, enjoy reading long, fluffy, chapters.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating as fast, I had major writer's block. Hopefully this chapter doesn't turn out as badly as I thought it did! I think it's kinda cheesy... but hopefully you guys like it!

After two weeks, Tao learned a lot about Kris, more than he needed to know honestly. Kris really enjoyed only wearing his boxers in the dorm room because it was too “hot.” Tao tried to sympathize to some extent: it was the summer, the college was in the south, and it was always really humid. BUT, the dorm rooms had very effective air conditioners; Tao was surprised that Kris didn’t catch a cold from exposing his stomach to the cold air. Tao began to recall the memory of first seeing Kris in the dorm room with only his boxers.

_“Oh god!” Tao almost yelled, as he closed the dorm room door quickly and covered his eyes. “Kris, I know you’re a pretty open guy and that we’ve gotten close over the past week, but this is a little too much.”_

_“What?” Kris asked, completely oblivious to his almost naked body._

_“Is it really that hot for you to not wear anything? The air conditioners are on pretty high; you’re gonna catch a cold or something,” Tao said, trying move to his side of the room without looking at Kris._

_“Ohh, you’re worried about that. The air conditioners aren’t enough man, it’s so humid out!” Kris exclaimed. “I haven’t gotten sick for over eight years, so you have nothing to worry about.”_

_“I’m glad you don’t get sick and stuff, but seeing you in just your boxers is really weird.” Tao answered, facing his back towards Kris._

_“Eh, boxers are the same as basketball shorts so it wouldn’t have made a difference anyways.”_

The little skirmish ended between the two: the clothes stayed off for Kris.

Tao didn’t have a problem with Kris’s stark nakedness; it was just unsettling at first. Tao never had a problem with heat; even in the summer, he usually wore long pants without it being a problem. He also wore longer clothes to make sure he didn’t tan; Tao enjoyed his paler skin. He just prayed that this didn’t become something that happened forever.

 

* * *

 

 

Kris became increasingly worried about Tao’s introverted behavior as the days went on. Kris believed that he was Tao’s only friend at college so far, at least from what he’s seen. Kris was very grateful for being able to enter Tao’s antisocial bubble, but he really wanted Tao to fully enjoy his experience at college. Kris decided to work on getting Tao to meet Kris’s friends.

Kris’s friends were pretty stable, for the most part. Some of them were crazy loud, but others were actually very relaxed and funny. After a couple of days of debating how to get Tao to meet Kris’s more chill friends, Kris decided that the best way to make friends was through studying together. Kris knew that one of his friends, Suho, needed some dire help with music theory too, so Kris decided to have Tao tutor them.

_“Hey Tao, can you help a friend and me study for the music theory quiz coming up?” Kris asked Tao in the dorm room._

_“Oh, you have a friend that also needs help?” Tao answered with a question; he was still nervous about meeting new people, even after two weeks of college._

_“Yeah, he’s really relaxed, we won’t interrupt your teaching or anything,” Kris said, trying to calm Tao down._

_“I wasn’t worried about that but okay, I’ll help you guys out,” Tao said._

_“Nice! Let’s all meet in the library at 2:30 on Thursday, okay?” Kris said, excited for the tutoring session, mainly because he knew Tao would look really cool in front of Suho._

_“Sure, I know you have class before that, so I’ll save us a table then.” Tao answered._

Thursday came around, and sure enough, Tao was already at a round wooden table in the library. He had his laptop open so he could work on other work while waiting for Kris and Suho to come. “ _It’s only two, I came too early. I’ll just work on the lyrics for my new song while I wait for them,_ ” Tao thought.

Tao worked on his new song, ”Reluctantly,” which was mainly about the only girl that he had gotten close to during high school, but had to leave because of a terribly large institution called UNIVERSITY. After about twenty-seven minutes of working, he saw Kris and someone shorter with brown hair and a big smile walking towards them. Tao also saw Kris holding up at least four bags of potato chips, which will probably serve as “snacks.” Tao chuckled internally.

“Hey Tao! This is Suho, the other friend that needed help with music theory.” Kris said, as he carefully set down his potato chips.

“The librarian is so gonna kick you out once she sees all of your chips.” Suho said, as he pulled a chair next to Kris. “Thanks for helping me out Tao; music theory is so boring that I just end up falling asleep. I basically know all of the basics like chords and notes, so you don’t have to reteach me that; it’s just the filling in chord progressions stuff that I have a little trouble with.”

“Oh okay, I already helped Kris with that stuff, so reviewing it with you guys shouldn’t be too bad,” Tao said to Suho. Tao got a good vibe from Suho, like he was someone that Tao could to talk to easily.

“A little!” scoffed Kris, looking up from his potato chips after hearing what Suho said. “You’re even worse than me with all the music theory stuff, don’t even try to lie.”

“I think it’s impossible for anyone to be worse than you at music theory,” Tao said to Kris. Suho started laughing.

“Tao’s right. Even I know how you did on the baseline test, and it was NOT pretty.” Suho said.

“Why am I always getting bullied,” Kris said, faking his tears.

“Aww Kris, don’t worry, you’re good at some things, like running for five minutes without crying,” Tao joked.

“OH MY GOSH, you actually made him run??” Suho said, surprised that someone got Kris to move around voluntarily.

“It was hilarious! You should’ve seen Kris at the water fountain,” Tao answered.

Kris began to pout. “Can we just get on to music theory stuff? Unlike Suho, I actually want to pass.” Kris was glad to see Tao warming up to Suho quickly.

“HA, I would’ve passed, just not a very good pass… but it still would’ve been a pass!” Suho said, trying to assert his dominance in the music theory realm.

“Okay okay, let’s start working,” Tao said, putting his laptop aside and grabbing his music theory review packet.

 

 

The tutoring was going very well until Tao grabbed his laptop to find examples for Kris and Suho. The second he opened the laptop, one of his songs started playing, not loudly, but just enough for Suho to hear and for Kris to recognize. Tao immediately started blushing and went into a state of panic and tried to stop the music, but it played long enough for Suho to comment on it.

“Woah, what song is that? It was really good; I’m totally gonna download it when I get back to my dorm,” Suho exclaimed.

Kris could hardly contain his excitement. “See, Tao! Your music is really good! You shouldn’t be afraid to show it to other people!”

“That was a song you wrote and composed?? That’s amazing!” Suho praised Tao.

Tao couldn’t help but look down. “Uhh, thank you. You don’t have to say that just because I’m here.”

“Don’t be modest! That song sounded really good. I didn’t know you could sing!” Suho said, rubbing Tao’s back to make him less uncomfortable.

“Not only can he sing, his rapping is super good too,” Kris said, not even hesitating to brag about his friend.

“That’s even more awesome! What’s your album called? I’m definitely going to check out more,” Suho said, amazed.

Tao kept shuffling around, but he definitely felt less uncomfortable. “Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. My album is called Z. Tao, if you really want to check it out.”

They went back to tutoring until dinner time. By that time, Suho and Kris were well versed in the language of music, or at least chord intervals. Kris also finished what turned out to be SEVEN bags of potato chips by the time they were finish; Tao and Suho almost threw up at the sight of seeing Kris inhale the potato chips. They all cleaned up and began to head to dinner together.

Tao and Suho were in a very heated conversation about fashion, “Gucci is definitely number one,” “No man, Gucci is overpriced and not worth it.” It took all of Tao’s willpower to not smack Suho in the face. Kris trailed along behind them, admiring his handwork. “ _I’m glad Tao finally got a new friend, maybe I’ll finally be able to get him to get other new friends. We’ll just take one step at a time._ ” Kris smiled to himself.

Tao looked behind him and saw Kris, “what are you grinning like an idiot for?”

Kris looked up, “Oh nothing, just thinking about all of the food they’re serving us for dinner! I’m definitely getting Chinese food today.”

Tao and Suho gagged at the thought of Kris inhaling more food. “Tao, you have to make Kris work out more or else the freshman fifteen is going to turn into a freshman two hundred.”

“Please no, anything but that!” Kris begged.

“How about we join the basketball team? Tryouts are in a month, we can train before then,” Tao suggested.

“Ahh, I’m too short for basketball. Kris definitely has the height for it though,” Suho said, looking up at Kris.

“I can work with basketball, height is all that matters,” Kris said, thankful for his genes.

“We’ll see about that,” Tao scoffed, noting their two inch difference. Tao decided that he was going to put Kris through some heave Spartan training; to be honest, it doesn’t need to be that intense, but Tao enjoys watching Kris suffer. Tao looked forward to the next few weeks of his life, which actually never happened during his high school days. Looking back on it, Tao felt a little different, maybe college really did provide him a good experience, or maybe it was something a little more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you guys rather me use other EXO members, members from completely other bands, like BTS, or a mix? I had a lot of trouble deciding, so I only introduced Suho here.  
> Also, I'm way too Tao biased sighss, but you guys are reading this so hopefully it doesn't bother you much and you guys are okay with it?   
> Tao's personality seems all over the place, sorryy TT^TT I have trouble deciding what to make him like


	5. Chapter 5

After a month, Tao made sure to use the free recording studios in the university. He already finished writing and composing his mini album a week into school, but he didn’t take advantage of the recording studios until Suho told Tao about them after the week they met.

_“So, where do you record your albums?” Suho asked Tao, after another vigorous music theory study session._

_“At my recording studio back home. I won’t be able to record anything until vacation starts, which is in two months.” Tao sighed. He really wanted to sing again and record his new songs._

_“There are recording studios right on campus, in the music department! My friends and I sing acapella for fun, so we like to record it for the memories,” Suho said, with a smile._

_“Oh really?? I had no idea. I should check them out. But is there a recording director there, or do we have to figure it out ourselves?” Tao asked._

_“You have to do it on your own, but if you need help, I could help you organize your recording,” Suho replied._

_Tao was still self-conscious about singing life in front of other people, especially ones that he wasn't too comfortable with. “Uhh…”_

_“I promise I won’t judge you; we can bring Kris along if that’ll make you feel more comfortable,” Suho suggested, knowing that Tao would probably be less uncomfortable in front of Kris than just Suho._

_“That’s not a bad idea…” Tao knew Kris would be happy about hearing Tao sing, so he agreed._

They met in the studio over the weekend, when they had time to relax. Suho led Tao and Kris to an empty recording room; Kris had a huge smile on his face, but Tao was pale, paler than he already. He was nervous about singing and possibly wasting his friends’ time by recording over and over again. Kris noticed Tao’s anxiety, so he tried to calm Tao down.

“Hey, you don’t need to be worried about singing in front of us. Suho and I both heard your previous songs and already know that you’re a great singer.” He pat Tao’s back as they stepped into the room.

“I just don’t want to waste your time… and what if you guys start thinking I’m not as good because this is live,” Tao said, looking down and shuffling his feet.

Suho turned around after turning the equipment on. “Tao, you don’t need to worry about anything; we came here voluntarily just so we could listen to you, so we don’t think this is a waste of time at all, okay?” Suho turned to Tao to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Suho really did remind Tao of his mom back home, which made him feel more at home at college.

Suho nudged Kris so that he could reassure Tao too. “Like I said before, we already like your singing, and we really want to be the first ones to hear your new album.”

Tao looked up, a small smile beginning to form on his face. “Thank you guys, I think I can do this now.”

 

Suho set everything up and performed a sound check before having Tao go in to record his actual music. Tao stood for a little bit in front of the mic. He already wrote the songs weeks ago and had them memorized in his head, but he felt very awkward in front of Kris and Suho. He decided that closing his eyes would be better and just sang his music with as much feeling as the lyrics required.

Once the first track was done, Tao slowly opened his eyes to see a stunned Kris and an overexcited Suho trying to get into the recording room.

“Tao!! That was amazing!” Suho exclaimed as he tackled Tao with a big bear hug. Suho began rubbing Tao’s head, which ended up messing Tao’s very well-kept hair.

“Suhoo,” Tao whined, trying to fix his hair and get out of Suho’s hug.

“My sweet little Tao, you were worried about nothing~” Suho sang. Tao glared at him because he was clearly at least half a head taller than Suho.

Suho finally got off of Tao and went back outside to load up the second track. Kris went into the recording room after being in a state of shock.

“That was a good song,” Kris looked like he was searching for more words to say to Tao, but nothing came out.

Tao nodded, “Thanks.”

Kris was debating whether or not to give Tao a hug like Suho did, but instead, he just put his hand on Tao’s shoulder and gave it a comforting shake. “The recording is going well, so don’t worry about anything.” He gave Tao a smile before walking back outside.

Tao didn’t know how to respond, so he just waited for the next song to come on, with a little smile on his lips.

 

* * *

 

The recording session was finished after three hours. By that time, Kris left the recording four times to get snacks to “share.” He ended up eating 70% of the three bags of chips he got and drinking all of the soda, while saving water for Tao to soothe his throat.

When Tao was done, his hair was a mess from all of Suho’s rubbing and comforting. Suho turned out to become Tao's main cheerleader.  As they were walking to dinner, Suho was chanting one of Tao’s songs ahead while Tao and Kris walked behind him, mainly trying to look like they didn't know him.

“How long did it take for you to write those?” Kris asked.

“I’d say all of those songs together took about a month to write? I had a lot of time over the summer and near the beginning of the year.” Tao answered. Kris noticed that Tao began to speak longer sentences, not just to Kris, but in general. The fact that Tao was opening up more made Kris feel relieved.

“Are you just naturally good at coming up with lyrics and melodies? Songs like those probably would’ve taken other people at least three or four months to write, right?” Kris asked.

“Those songs aren’t too complicated. In high school, the music theory teacher taught us simple chord progressions, so I modified them and made them sound complicated, but it’s really not that much.” Tao shrugged.

“Dang music theory is more important than I thought… I should stop sleeping in class.” Kris said.

“Good luck with that!” Suho called back, hearing Kris. Tao giggled a little. Suho ran back and hooked his arm around Tao’s neck and chanted one of Tao’s new songs as they walked to the dining area.

Kris trailed behind again, watching Tao struggle to get away from Suho. Kris knew he had a lot of friends, but he couldn’t help but feel that Tao was unique. Tao barely said one word to him when they first met, but now he already has other friends, new talents, and Kris couldn’t help but think he was the cause of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer's block, damn youu  
> Hopefully more romantic stuff will be comingg~


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DOUBLE DIGITS?? Thank yall for liking ittt  
> School has reached an all time peak in stress level so I apologize for the short chapters TT^TT I really wish I had enough creativity to write more sighss...

After spending two months living with Tao, Kris was not prepared for a week break from him. Kris had already become accustomed to being awakened by Tao, even with the loud-ass alarm clock, eating with Tao, listening to Tao’s music with Tao, and studying with Tao. Kris had other friends, for sure, but he felt most comfortable around Tao.

As they were packing their suitcases to prepare for their return to home, Kris tried to learn more about Tao’s life back at home, because Tao rarely indulged in talking about himself.

“I’m so excited to eat my mom’s cooking again! She’s the best at making food, but my dad is also a really good cook.” Tao rambled on. Kris noticed that a twinkle always appeared in Tao’s eyes when talking about Qingdao.

As Tao kept talking, his phone started ringing. When he looked at the screen, it said “Oh Sehun.” “ _This’ll be fun,”_ Tao thought, as he answered the phone.

“TAO, I’M SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU AGAIN, YOUR PARENTS ARE ALL PREPARING FOR YOU TO COME HOME!” Sehun yelled into the phone.

“Ah, ah, that’s great. Wait, why are you with my parents?” Tao asked, rubbing his ears from Sehun’s screaming.

“They invited me over because I’m the best person ever,” Sehun said, smugly.

“Sure Sehun. I have to get back to packing; I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” Tao said, trying to leave Sehun.

“Hmmph! Fine, bai bai Tao~” Sehun said, with a smile.

Tao saw Kris staring at him. “My friend at home was being annoying.” Tao laughed to himself. “He’s waiting for me to come home.”

Kris felt something brew internally, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was. “Oh, that’s cool. I wanna meet your friends at home one day.”

“Ah, it’s just him. If you haven’t noticed now, I’m not too good with other humans,” Tao said, surprised that he was so nonchalant around Kris. “No one ever really talked to me in high school because they thought I looked scary.”

Tao cast a dejected look to the ground that instinctively made Kris want to comfort him. Kris felt too awkward hugging Tao so he just gently rubbed his head. “You’re definitely not scary looking; you’ve got plenty of new friends now. You’re natural eye bags are what make you unique and look cute. ”

Kris didn’t even notice he said “look cute” until a couple seconds after when he saw Tao’s eyes widen. “I MEAN- make you look manly, because guys don’t usually want to look cute.” Kris said, looking away from Tao.

When Kris glanced at Tao again, he saw an expression on Tao’s face. “ _Is that… disappointment? No… it can’t be.”_

The two students went back to packing. By the time they finished, Tao’s ride was already on campus to pick him up. His parents didn’t want Tao to rely on public transportation, so they sent Tao’s personal driver to get him all the way back to Qingdao. Tao made sure his phone was all charged so he could listen to music on the two hour drive home. Before he left the dorm, he looked back at Kris. “Bye Kris, I’ll see you in a week. Make sure you don’t devour everything in sight back at home.” He joked.

Kris laughed, “Bye Tao!”

When Tao finally closed the dorm door, Kris sighed. For the past couple of days, he’s been really confused about his random feelings bubbling up inside, like how he felt when Tao finally met a couple of Kris’s other friends.

_“You’re always around Kris, but he never introduced you to us. What’s your name?” Baekhyun asked, leaning over the table to look past Kris to get a good glance at Tao._

_“Oh, I’m Tao.” Tao said, trying to be friendly. “ I don’t like staying at the dining area for too long because of how loud it is, so I usually just try to get out as soon as I come in.”_

_“Makes sense.” Baekhyun replied, rubbing his chin. “Are you also a music major?”_

_“Yep, music composition.” Tao responded._

_“Wait… are you the person that always gets Mr. Wong mad because you listen to music in the back of the classroom??” Baekhyun asked, oblivious to how awkward Tao now felt; Tao’s cheeks immediately reddened._

_“Yeahh… Sorry for always disrupting the class…” Tao said, trying to rub his cheeks so they wouldn’t beas red anymore._

_“No, it’s great! Mr. Wong doesn’t notice that I’m sleeping in class like two seats away from you!” Baekhyun said, with a big rectangular smile._

_“Wait, how does Mr. Wong notice you have earbuds in but not Baekhyun dead asleep?” Kris asked._

_“’At least his ears are open and not blocked,’” Baekhyun said, imitating Mr. Wong’s shaky old voice._

_Baekhyun and Tao immediately began talking about all of their other classes together and about how Mr. Wong’s comb-over made them want to gag._

As Kris remembered that moment and recalled feeling something in his gut at the time. Shock that Tao was actually talking to a guy like Baekhyun? That’s probably it.

_“Excuse me, can I talk to you for a couple of minutes?” A girl asked Tao, while he and Kris were making their way home from music theory. She had long brown, straight hair that framed her face well, and round eyes._

_“Uhh, sure. You can go back to the dorm without me if you want.” Tao said, starting to walk towards the girl._

_“Okay man,” Kris said. Even though Tao told him to go to back, Kris watched the entire scene unfold. He couldn’t hear anything, but he watched anyways._

_He saw the girl talk to Tao for a bit, while Tao’s look went from confusion to a realization._

_From that, Kris immediately knew that Tao was being asked out. Kris wasn’t exactly sure what he felt inside, but he knew it wasn’t a happy feeling. He brushed it off and continued watching the scene unfold._

_He then saw Tao look at her in a melancholic way, as he said something. Tears came from the girl’s eyes, as Tao stood awkwardly to the side, trying to comfort her. When the girl calmed down, she looked up and asked for something again. Tao smiled and gave her a hug. When the entire scene finished, Kris quickly ran to up to the dorm (without passing out) and jumped on his bed to act like he was relaxing when Tao returned._

_When Tao opened the door to his room, Kris saw that his eyes were red. “Whoa, are you okay?” Kris asked._

_“Yeah… I just don’t like seeing other people cry, because it ends up… making me cry.” Tao replied, suddenly more tears coming out of his eyes._

_Kris quickly got up from his bed so that he could wrap Tao in a big hug. He felt a damp spot on his shirt as Tao was trying to wipe his tears away. “I’m sorry, but can we stay like this for a little longer?” Tao asked, through sniffles._

_Kris smiled, “Yeah.”_

Kris didn’t even know what he was feeling at that time. Relief that Tao rejected the girl so they could hang out more? Kris couldn’t quite understand all of these new emotions. He passed it off as something platonic, between two “bros.”

 

* * *

 

 

A couple days passed while Kris was back home in Quangzhou; Kris had a lot of fun with his old high school friends, his mom, and his little sister. Kris and his little sister were really close; he always liked keeping up the “protective gege” act in front of all of her friends. But within all that fun, Kris got a lot of new time to think. Kris couldn’t help but feel that his random feelings with Tao weren’t normal, because he never felt it with any of his other friends.

When a girl asked his friend, Zhang Yixing out, Kris wasn’t just relaxed about it, he was HOPING that Yixing said yes. But what Kris couldn’t figure out was why watching Tao didn’t receive a similar reaction.

While he was with his sister, Kris decided to play one of Tao’s songs for her, just to see how she would react. As he watched her eyes widen, her mouth turn to a smile, and swing to the music, Kris realized that he missed listening to Tao’s music in his earbuds together. They would always listen to music together while walking to classes, or whenever Tao dragged Kris out running. As Kris thought of that, he actually began MISSING their jogs in the afternoon together.

Kris really couldn’t understand what was happening with all of his emotions. He texted Tao during the week, just to see what he was up to. Tao replied with a picture of him, his little brother, and another guy, probably Sehun, playing Mario Kart together. “ _I keep falling TT^TT_ ” Tao texted.

Kris laughed to himself. “ _Stop playing on Rainbow Road_ ,” he texted back.

They texted for about twenty minutes, talking about what happened at home. After that, Tao had to leave to help his mom prepare food.

Kris lay on his bed alone. His sister left a while ago, while Kris was texting Tao. Kris decided to go see what his sister thought of Tao’s music.

“It was really good! His voice is so gentle and smooth; his rapping was cool too! He’s also cute,” Kris’s sister said with a smile on her face.

Kris’s face suddenly turned stiff. “Oh, he’s actually a friend of mine at college. We’re roommates.”

“Are you serious?? I’m gonna listen to all of his stuff now so that if I ever see him, I’ll be able to impress him and maybe he’ll fall in love with me and we’ll live happily ever after,” his sister joked.

“Haha, you keep dreaming, sis,” Kris said, leaving her room.

Kris went through his day like any other day, except for the tiny voice in the back of his mind making him think about Tao. When Kris finally went on his bed, he laid awake thinking about things. He thought of Tao’s laugh that rarely happens, but when it does, it explodes and makes the world brighter. He thought of the small smile Tao shows around other people. He thought of Tao’s singing and how smooth it was. He thought of how nice and sharp Tao’s eyes looked, and how the undereye bags made him look unique. Once he finally started drifting to sleep, he jolted awake with the realization of one thing.

_I like Tao._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you guys don't find the sudden shift in Kris's behavior suddennn


	7. Chapter 7

Kris’s mind was in complete disarray when he saw Tao at college again.

_“Hi Kris!” Tao said, with a little smile on his face._

_Kris’s heart almost stopped when he noticed Tao had a new haircut, still had bangs, just not covering his entire forehead, and it looked really good._

_“Hey Tao, how was Qingdao?” Kris asked, before starting to look suspiciously silent._

_“Oh it was great; I got tons of new clothes!” Tao answered, showing all of his new Gucci to Kris as they unpacked their suitcases._

_Kris just smiled as he watched Tao carefully hang his new clothes in his wardrobe while humming. When Tao noticed Kris stopped talking, he turned to him. “Are you okay? You’re unnaturally silent for a guy that never stops talking.”_

_“I don’t consistently talk all the time! I know when to stop talking. Hmmph,” Kris grumped, but he couldn’t help but feel like Tao was acting a lot closer to Kris._

* * *

 

Tao had a funny feeling that Kris liked him, and he had no problem with it. Kris often just stared at Tao for long periods of time, or got silent when he saw Tao talking to other people; it was quite obvious honestly.

Tao had already talked Baekhyun and Suho about it, and they all agreed that Kris was definitely not normal around Tao. When Tao explained how Kris acted when Tao got asked out by that girl, it basically confirmed all of their hunches.

_“Are you going to ask him out?” Suho asked, very excited to see his close friends get together. They were all sitting in a coffeeshop together in the afternoon; it was starting to get cold, so they didn’t hang out outside as much anymore._

_“Nah, I’m going to wait for Kris to do it. If I’m wrong, I don’t want our rooming experience to be super awkward for the rest of the year.” Tao responded, smiling at Suho’s obvious enthusiasm._

_“But what if he never asks you out??” Baekhyun asked._

_“Well then it was never meant to be, right?” Tao replied, keeping that thought in mind for a future song._

_“That’s actually a really good mindset…” Baekhyun said, looking in the distance, thinking about all of his failed attempts of asking girls out._

_Tao laughed and patted Baekhyun’s head. “It’s okay; at least you know now.” Tao looked at his phone to check the time. “I have to go to class now.” Tao sighed, as he got up from his chair. “Bye guys!”_

* * *

 

Kris had no idea how to act on his feelings for Tao. He was afraid of rejection, awkwardness, and the possible silence that could come from Tao if Kris actually did manage to ask him out. After a couple of days, he decided to talk to Suho about his problems.

“MAMAAAA~” Kris sang, when he saw Suho in the coffeeshop they agreed to meet at.

Suho rolled his eyes. “Hey Kris, what’s up?” He asked, sipping his coffee.

“I have a really big problem… To be honest, I don’t even know how to say it without sounding weird.” Kris said, trying to stall for time.

“Kris, just say it. I won’t judge you, I’m your mom after all,” Suho joked, putting a comforting arm around Kris’s shoulders.

“Thanks mom. Fine, I’ll just say it.” Kris took a deep breath, then said, “What if you start judging me and stuff?”

“I won’t judge you, I’ve seen you jogging around campus before, that’s as low as you’ll probably ever get for me.” Suho said.

“But what if you stop talking to me?” Kris said, still trying to stall for time.

“I’m your mom, I can’t NOT talk to you,” Suho said, starting to get impatient.

“Okay.” Kris said. “But what if you start telling everyone about this and then I’ll have to transfer schools and waste more of my parents’ money, or I’ll have to move to Peru under the name of José Espinoza and become a sheep herder.”

“OH MY GOD KRIS JUST SPIT IT OUT ALREADY,” Suho yelled, trying very hard not to slap Kris’s head off.

“Okay okay, geez you don’t have to yell, we’re in public,” Kris took a final deep breath. “IthinkIhaveacrushonTao,” he said quickly, almost regretting the words that left his mouth.

Suho finally calmed down and smiled. He already had a hunch that Kris wanted to about Tao when Kris called him at one in the morning to hang out. He tried to stay calm and surprised on the outside. “Really?” “ _Nailed it, Suho,”_ he thought.

“Yeah… it’s probably just a stupid little thing… I should just let it go.” Kris said dismissively, taking a sip of his extra sugary caramel latte.

“NO,” Suho said, before realizing he sounded way too urgent; thankfully, Kris is quite dense. “I mean, no. Don’t give up on it! I mean, why do you like Tao?”

“Hmm,” Kris started thinking. “I like how his personality didn’t match his face when we first met… and how overtime, you realize that his personality actually does match his face. His mouth curls up slightly when he smiles, and his laugh explodes when he finally lets loose… He takes great care in how he looks, but also makes sure that I stay healthy…” After Kris began noticing he had rambled for two minutes of Tao, he sat silently while Suho smiled and patted Kris’s arm.

“See, you can’t just give it up. I think you should go for it, one hundred percent.”

“You really think so? What if he rejects me though…” Kris said, slighty more hopeful now.

“I have a good feeling that you won’t be rejected.” Suho said, with a smirk beginning to form.

“How?”

“Let’s say… mother’s intuition,” Suho replied.

After that, they just studied for music theory together, well as much as they could anyways. They both had been sleeping in class so they had no clue about what was going on. Once they “finished”, Kris headed back to the dorm but picked up snacks before entering the dorm room; he decided to start stockpiling the snacks so he wouldn’t have to leave the dorm often when it started get colder.

He got back to the dorm and noticed that Tao was still out for classes. Kris decided to think about how to ask Tao out; hopefully Suho was right.

“ _Should I just ask him out? Or should I actually plan something… that sounds a little girly though…_ ” Kris thought back to all of the Korean dramas that he watched in the past, the guys always looked super cool when asking a girl out, but this wasn’t a girl Kris was going to ask out, this was Tao.

“ _Maybe I should do as simple as possible: get him some flowers, tell him to meet me somewhere and ask him out there,”_ Kris thought that was a good plan. “ _But where would I tell him to meet me? The dining room is too open… the music recording studios are too far… a grassy area would be romantic I guess. Oh, the place where I scared Tao on our first jog could work!”_ Kris looked back at the memory; Tao looked terrified after Kris pushed Tao onto the grass, so he assumed that Tao would’ve remembered the place.

Kris took his jacket and left the dorm again.

* * *

 

It was seven when Tao came back to the dorm. He had grabbed a quick dinner and decided to head to his room to get some work done. As he placed down his backpack, he noticed a decent bouquet of roses on his bed. _“How’d that get there?”_ Tao thought, as he went over to look at it. When he picked up the bouquet, Tao noticed a little card stuck between two roses. _“Meet me at the place where I scared you on our first jog.”_ Tao recognized Kris’s third grade level handwriting and smiled. Tao did a quick check in the mirror before leaving the dorm yet again.

 

Tao finally reached the grass area where Kris scared Tao at on their first jog. Tao decided to walk slowly so he could take in the moment, and to let Kris freak out a little more.

* * *

 

Kris stood on the grass, terrified. _“What if he ignores the roses completely?? No, Tao’s a good person. What if he forgets about me scaring him because he repressed it or something?? What if I get rejected and Suho was wrong? What if Tao’s already found someone to date when he went home to Qingdao, and he just never told me? What if my pants fall down? What if it turns out that Tao’s one hundred percent straight and will think I’m weird and creepy for liking him? Does my hair look okay? What if I completely pass out and Tao has to carry me to the ER and then I accidentally shit in my pants because of the loosened bowel movements?”_ All of these thoughts circled through Kris’s mind while he waited for Tao.

 

After Kris freaked out for five more minutes, Tao finally came to view, and Kris’s heart sped up to a beat that probably wasn’t healthy. ” _Oh god, this is actually happening, I should’ve planned this out a little more._ ”

“Hey Kris, what’s this all about?” Tao asked, very excited about what was about to happen.

“Oh… you know, just thinking back to the good old days of when I still couldn’t jog,” Kris joked, stalling for time.

“Haha yeah, you were pretty sad to run with in the beginning… to be honest you’re still pretty sad to run with now,” Tao joked as Kris pouted. “But seriously, why’d you call me here? Thank you for the roses by the way, they were really pretty.”

_“_ Oh no problem,” Kris said quickly. _“Oh god I’m gonna have to say it now, you can do it Kris.”_ Kris took a deep breath and tried to use a confident voice. “Even though it’s only been two months, I really enjoyed getting to know you, and I’m very thankful that you’ve allowed me to become your friend. I feel really comfortable around you, more comfortable than any of the other friends on campus. So I just wanted to ask if you would…” Kris paused and took another deep breath. “Would you go out with me, Huang Zitao?”

Tao gave a big wide smile. “Yes, you big dummy, took a while for you to ask.” He said as he gave Kris a big hug.

Kris let out the breath he didn’t even know he was holding and pulled Tao in tightly; they both stayed silent for a couple of seconds before Tao noticed that Kris had started crying.

“Hey, why are you crying?” Tao asked, while rubbing Kris’s back.

“I didn’t think it would turn out well; I was so nervous,” Kris replied through his sniffles. He noticed that Tao made no effort to pull away, so they stayed like that for a while.

After Kris was done crying, he pulled away. “Let’s go back to the dorm now; it’s a little cold,” he said, starting to walk in the direction of the dorm, but he stopped when he noticed Tao pulling the back of his jacket.

“Can we hold hands… or is that too soon,” Tao asked, too embarrassed to look into Kris’s eyes.

Kris smiled, “ _Oh my gosh he’s so cute.”_ He took Tao’s hand in his, and they slowly walked back to their dorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE FLUFF CAN FINALLY BEGIN  
> Hopefully this doesn't seem too sudden for you guys, I just really wanna get to writing cute fluff between Tao and Kris


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fluff fluff fluff fluff  
> it's probably too cheesy but please enjoy!

It was only until the next day when Tao realized that he was suddenly dating a person. Tao, the person who only had one friend in high school, became someone that had multiple friends and a BOYFRIEND. Just thinking about the word “boyfriend” made Tao flutter and also feel a little uncomfortable on the inside. Tao had no experience when it came to love: the closest he ever got was a girl in high school that had to leave before they even got together.

When Tao had to wake Kris up for music theory, he felt even more awkward than before. He first thought of if he should do something more affectionate, but he decided against it because it was only one day.

“Kris, wake up!!” Tao said, shaking Kris’s shoulders.

Kris woke up more easily today. He started stretching and opened his eyes. When he saw Tao’s face, Kris’s face immediately lit up. “Good morning Tao!!”

Tao didn’t want to show Kris that he was blushing just from a smile brighter than the sun outside, so he turned away and covered his face. “Hurry up dummy, we still have to get breakfast.”

Kris laughed. “Yes, breakfast! I’m really hungry.”

“You always are,” Tao said, as he checked his closet for a good jacket. As he was looking, he kept rubbing his face to make the redness go away.

After ten minutes, the finished getting ready and began making their way to the dining hall with earbuds shared between them. Kris’s fingers were brushing against Tao’s knuckles as they walked side by side, but when Kris made a reach to grab Tao’s hand, Tao instinctively moved his hand away. “We’re in public… I’m sorry, I really like you, but I’m not comfortable yet… I hope you can understand?”

Kris did understand; he wasn’t THAT dense. “Ah, it’s okay. Baby steps right, Tao?”

Kris tried to look okay with the situation, but his face betrayed his emotions. Tao saw a smile that didn’t reach his eyes completely. The fact that Tao was dating him should’ve been enough, right? But Tao couldn’t help but feel like he had to make Kris’s day better somehow.

Tao quickly dragged Kris towards a cluster of trees with no one around. Kris was very confused as he saw Tao shift his feet and look down without saying a word. Before Kris could ask why Tao brought him there, Tao pressed a quick peck to Kris’s cheek.

Tao quickly turned away and started walking away after doing something so embarrassing. “One day, I’ll do it in public with no problem… just not right now, okay?” he called out behind him.

The shock immediately bubbled into happiness; Kris’s day was completely brightened. “Okay Tao~” Kris sang as he ran to catch up with Tao.

Once they made it to the dining hall and scarfed down their breakfasts, Kris and Tao made their way to music theory class. Tao settled into his regular position: open notebook with pen in hand and earbud in one ear. Kris was already lying down over his desk, but this time, instead of sleeping, he occasionally stared at Tao (he still wasn’t paying attention, but at least he was awake).

Tao tried to take good notes for music theory (because he knew Suho and Kris were both going to need it), but he kept getting distracted when he saw Kris looking up at him with one eye. Tao tried to keep his face from turning redder than a tomato, but probably to no avail.

Every single time Kris looked up to stare at Tao, the only thought in his head was, “ _I’m so lucky that he said yes.”_ Kris was in a state that was above the clouds. He still couldn’t believe their first kiss was initiated by Tao rather than Kris; even though it was only on the cheek, it still counts. Kris just hoped that during their first real kiss, Tao would be just as adorable as he was then; then again, Tao can never NOT be adorable. Just watching Tao fidget in his seat and cup his cheeks from embarrassment was cuteness overload for Kris.

Kris did end up falling asleep in the last twenty minutes of music theory, so when Tao jostled Kris awake, all Kris did was look up at Tao again with a smile. “Hi Tao.”

Tao could already feel his cheeks becoming a little hot, just from seeing Kris look up at him, and Tao honestly hated it a little. Anything Kris did suddenly had a huge impact on Tao after Kris asked him out. “C’mon, we have to go to back to the dorms to get ready for our classes later.” Tao said, while trying to get Kris to leave his seat.

“What’s the rush? Class isn’t for like… four hours,” Kris said, finally getting out of his seat.

“Because…” Tao responded, but trailed off. He didn’t want to admit that he wanted to spend more time with Kris back at the dorm; he hoped that Kris would get it on his own so Tao wouldn’t have to say it out loud.

“Because what??” Kris asked; Tao forgot that Kris was more dense than all of the heavy textbooks back in the dorm room combined.

“I wanna spend more time with you,” Tao said very quietly under his breath.

Sadly, Kris couldn’t hear it. “What??”

“I said because I want to spend time with you,” Tao said, a little louder.

“What??” Kris was smiling, so Tao knew he was just playing dumb.

“Oh shut up,” Tao said as he pushed Kris back into his chair and began walking away.

Kris was still laughing by the time he caught up to Tao. He slung an arm over Tao’s shoulders and pressed his head against Tao’s. “I _really_ like you.”

Tao tried to keep his grumpy exterior, but his mouth couldn’t help but curl up into a smile. As it did that, Kris stared at Tao; he knew that that smile didn’t come all too often, so he cherished all the times it did show up.

As they walked side by side back to the dorm, Kris spent the entire time listening to Tao talk about his recent songs. He listened to how Tao took his inspirational quote that he said to Baekhyun and made an entire song about being relaxed when going through life. Kris always enjoyed it when Tao talked about his passions, but Kris started to enjoy it even more because he noticed the little gleam in Tao’s eyes and excitement in Tao’s voice. Tao didn’t talk for long periods of time, so to be able to listen to Tao on their way back to the dorm room was a blessing to Kris.

In the middle of Tao’s talk, he noticed that Kris had not said one word and was only looking at Tao. “Are you okay? You’re quiet again.”

“Ah, I’m just watching you talk. Don’t worry about me, keep going,” Kris said, trying to urge Tao to talk more.

Tao didn’t seem to quite understand why Kris said what he said, so he just nodded and kept talking about the song. When they got back to their dorm, Kris decided to take _another_ nap while Tao chose to work on the new music theory homework.

In the middle of Tao’s work, he got a phone call from Sehun. Tao quickly turned the music on his stereos even lower (because Tao didn’t want to disturb Kris’s sleep) and answered the call.

“Hey Sehun,” Tao said, trying to work on his homework at the same time.

“Hi Tao!!” Sehun said brightly. “Are you settling back into college well? It’s been like a week, but I already miss kicking your ass at Mario Kart.”

“You did NOT kick my ass during Mario Kart!” Tao said defensively; Sehun always said that Tao was over competitive, which was kind of true, so Tao did not appreciate Sehun’s remarks. “I’m fine. Actually, crazy stuff happened, but I don’t know how to explain it…”

“What? What is it??” Sehun became super intrigued. ” _Tao has something crazy in his life?? It better not be about him getting that new Gucci bag that he’s been looking at for the past four months…”_

“I kinda…” Tao started. “I kinda have a… boyfriend now?” Tao said, already holding the phone away from him to brace for a possible Sehun scream.

“HAAAAAAAAAAAAH???” Tao was right. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?? YOU’RE GAY?”

“Well… I don’t think I’m gay… but I really like him?” Tao thanked god that Kris was still sleeping.

“What do you like about him? What does he look like? When can I meet him?” Sehun started unloading questions onto Tao.

“He’s tall, even taller than both of us, which is saying something. He has bright eyes; he’s really relaxed. He’s usually super happy about everything; he eats like a monster and naps all the time too. Uhh… what do I like about him… I really like how he’s positive and goofy and open about everything that he’s thinking about. I like how he somehow ended up really liking and accepting me for who I am, rather than turning me away like a lot of the other people I’ve met.”

When Tao said that, Sehun really was able to understand just how much Tao liked Kris. Sehun knew, at a very young age, that Tao didn’t have any friends besides him, and that he was always in some form of depression because of how other people treated him. The fact that Tao is confidently able to feel comfortable with himself around Kris really means that this Kris guy was a good person.

“That’s really great, Tao. You better let me meet him so I can give him the smack down on how to treat you.” Sehun joked.

“Haha, that’s not gonna happen,” Tao joked. “I don’t want to scare Kris away with the only high school friend I have.”

“HMMPH,” Sehun pouted. “Well then I’ll just have to find you and give Kris the smack down that way.”

“Sure sure,” Tao replied, while smiling. He was thankful for how protective and caring Sehun sounded. “I have homework to work on, so I’ll call you again later.”

“Okay my baby panda~” Sehun said, laughing because he knew Tao would be mad and because Sehun knew he was younger than Tao.

“Whatever baby face.” Tao retorted.

“Byeee,” Sehun sang while hanging up.

Tao went immediately back to work; he had to make sure he could do everything because he KNEW Suho and Kris were going to ask for help on the next music theory test very soon. Meanwhile, Kris had been awake the entire time.

“ _He’s so adorable; I wish I could hug him right now…”_ Kris thought, and he considered it for a while, more like three seconds, because that’s how long his attention-span is. Kris got up. “Hey Tao!” Kris said, pretending to act like he just got up and started stretching.

“Oh!” Tao really hoped Kris was sleeping. “Hi Kris. Did I wake you with the phone call?” “ _Please say no, please say no, please say no.”_

“Hahaha yeah, but that’s okay.” Kris said, getting out of bed and walking over to Tao.

“… how much did you hear?” Tao asked, trying to keep his voice even.

Kris smiled as he knelt down next to Tao’s chair. “Just enough,” he said as he wrapped his arms around Tao. He felt Tao stiffen up, but Tao never pulled away and that’s what matters. After a few seconds, Kris was about to pull away, when he felt Tao pet his hair. It felt really nice; Kris decided to just sit there and lay his head on Tao’s lap.

“Ah, don’t take a nap on my lap; it’s not comfy. You’ll end up getting a stiff neck.” Tao said, but he didn’t pull away, and that’s all that mattered to Kris.

“No this is comfy,” Kris said, as he seated himself in a better position to take a nap on Tao’s lap.

“Don’t blame me if your neck hurts when you wake up.” Tao said, as he went on to doing homework.

“I won’t!” Kris replied, already feeling drowsy. The warmth from Tao’s lap, coupled with Tao’s occasional petting and nice music made Kris start to fall asleep.

After ten minutes had passed, Tao noticed that Kris was completely knocked out. “ _I really don’t want his neck to start hurting…”_ Tao thought. He decided to use all the strength he could muster to move Kris. It definitely wasn’t easy, even for Tao. When he finally got Kris into bed, he made sure to tuck him in so that he would feel warm. After staring at Kris, Tao decided to also rest his head on Kris’s bed. He made sure to set an alarm at 3:30 to get to their 4 o’clock class.

Kris woke up two hours after Tao had moved him, at around one. He sat up and tried to wipe the drowsiness away from his eyes, but then he realized that Tao was sitting at the side of his bed with his head down, asleep. Then he realized that he was suddenly in his bed and not in Tao’s lap. Kris decided to be as gentlemanly as possible and blow in Tao’s face to wake up.

Tao quickly shook his head and swatted Kris’s head. “You bum! I was trying to sleep!” Tao complained, grabbing some of Kris’s blankets to act as a better pillow.

Kris laughed. “Then sleep on your bed; you’ve gotta be super uncomfortable being half on the floor and half on my bed.” Kris said as he started to get up to move Tao.

“I’m fine!” Tao insisted. “Just let me sleep” He said, as he buried his head into Kris’s blankets.

Kris just let Tao stay until he fully fell asleep; Kris tried to move Tao but of course, Kris was not strong enough to move Tao all the way to his own bed. Kris just ended up moving Tao onto Kris’s bed and tucked him in. Afterwards, he moved onto finally starting his homework. As he did it, he opened his music playlists to a folder labeled “Taoo~” and played it softly, so it wouldn’t deserves the prince’s beauty sleep.

“Have a nice nap Tao.” Kris said with a smile.

“Mmm,” Tao responded, before rolling himself into a smaller burrito in Kris’s sheets and going back to sleep.

Kris turned back to his work with a smile and worked until classes started again.


	9. Chapter 9

Three days after the music theory class, Suho and Kris asked Tao for yet another music theory tutoring session (just as he predicted), which Tao was okay with, he just wished that they would stop falling asleep. Music theory isn’t THAT boring, at least to Tao.

He grabbed a large circle table in the library, knowing that Kris would try to sneak a ton of snacks in and that Suho enjoyed spreading all of his papers out to make sure everything is “neat” (he usually ended up taking at least half of the table to just himself). Kris was the first to arrive, and just as Tao expected, carrying seven bags of chips and Pocky. Rather than sitting across from Tao, Kris pulled a chair right next to Tao to see what he was working on.

“Is this your second song that you were talking about a while back?” Kris asked, putting his head on Tao’s shoulder and staring at the computer screen.

“Mmhm,” Tao replied, while trying to input notes and think about rhythms on his online score. Tao was already used to Kris’s leaning, so he wasn’t fazed anymore. Kris remained, staring at Tao and his pretty, long fingers typing on the keyboard. Kris wanted to reach out and connect their hands, but he knew Tao would kill him for interrupting his creative genius.

Tao was so engrossed with his music writing that he never saw Suho approaching the table.

Kris and Tao didn’t decide when to tell their other friends about their new relationship, so they both just kept silent about it. The second Suho arrived at the table, Kris quickly lifted his head off of Tao’s shoulder and shuffled his chair back to its original position, which obviously wasn’t very discreet.

“ _Just act smooth, Suho’s probably doesn’t even suspect a thing right now. And I’m a good actor so we should be fine._ ” Kris thought. “Whaddap Suho,” Kris said. Kris clearly thought he did a great job at deterring Suho, as he smiled at Suho.

Tao rolled his eyes. “ _This idiot,”_ he thought, as he sighed, but he decided to roll with it, just in case Suho didn’t see everything. Suho WAS looking at his phone when he got to the table so there was a chance he didn’t notice anything. Tao decided to try and distract Suho by using Kris’s snacks. “Oh my god Suho, Kris brought even more snacks to this session than last time.”

Suho totally figured everything out, displaying it clearly with his smug grin. “MmmmMMMMmmmm, you two got something going on don’t youuu.”

Kris tried acting once more. “No idea what you’re talking about; we’re the same as we usually are if by something going on you mean beautiful friendship between two normal dudes then yeah but nothing else like what kind of weirdo are you that thinks I’m dating Tao, ‘cause I’m not and stuff.” When Kris finished talking, he didn’t realize that he didn’t take a single breath during that time. As he took a big gasp of air, he thought, “ _I should switch out of my music performance major and go into theater or something that was pretty good.”_

Tao KNEW that Kris was probably extremely satisfied with his “acting,” but Tao knew Suho would’ve figured everything out by now. “Yes Suho, you are right.”

Kris eyes widened. “HAHHA, Tao’s really good with the jokes nothing is going on!” Kris said, trying to convince Suho that he and Tao weren’t dating. He made a face at Tao that said, “what are you doing we were totally fooling Suho with my acting.”

Suho and Tao both looked at Kris with a face that said, “you should just stop before we both hurt you.” Kris finally let up and stopped talking.

Suho’s eyes lit up. “You guys are dating now??”

Tao suddenly felt too shy to answer, so he looked at Kris to try and get him to talk instead. Kris immediately understood. “Uhh… yes.”

“When did Kris confess?? I didn’t even know he would do it so soon!” Suho asked loudly, garnering some glares from other students trying to study. Suho decided to sit down and be a little more quiet.

“About a week ago,” Kris answered, while rubbing the back of his neck, remembering the sweet little memory.

Suho clapped his hands. “Kris, I can’t believe you manned up and asked Tao out. When Tao was telling Baekhyun and me about you, it seemed like he thought you were never gonna do it!”

Tao’s eyes widened; he didn’t expect Suho to share their little exchange with Kris. He quickly cleared his throat. “You guys can talk about this later,” he said, trying to change the topic. “We have to work on music theory before the librarian finds Kris’s snacks.”

Suho pouted. “Fiiiiiine.” Suho opened up his sheets of “notes” (more like unfilled homework sheets), and spread them out all over the table.

Kris also opened up his notebook as well as a bag of Pocky, and started nibbling on a stick.

 

* * *

 

 

After three hours of teaching, and a couple of tears from Suho, and an almost flipped table from Kris, the music theory session was finished. Tao really wished that Kris and Suho would just pay attention in music theory, but he knew trying to convince them was futile. Both humans enjoyed sleeping too much.

Kris went to find a trash can and throw all of his snack packets away, while Suho decided to pull Tao aside and ask for details.

“Tell me tell me,” Suho said, making sure Kris wasn’t on his way back.

Tao sighed. “Okay okay.” Tao took a deep breath. “He asked me out in the park that we went jogging at for the first time, that’s all.”

Suho grinned and cooed, “Awwwwwww!”

Tao immediately blushed. “Shhhh, it wasn’t all that special.” But Tao’s face betrayed his true emotions: he was grinning at the cute memory.

When Kris came back from throwing out his seven snack bags, Suho gave Kris a stern look.

“Did I do something wrong??” Kris asked, startled by Suho’s unusual mean look.

“If Tao EVER comes to me crying about something you did wrong, I will never let you near him. Do I make myself clear??” Suho asked, in a commanding voice. Tao tried to make Suho calm down because the three of them were getting some stares from the rest of the library.

“Wait, I thought you were MY mom, why aren’t you making sure Tao doesn’t hurt me?” Kris asked, with a pout on his face. Tao tried not to laugh, because the pout really didn’t work on Kris’s manly face.

“Because I know Tao would never do anything wrong. YOU, on the other hand, have had many faults in your past.” Suho gave Kris a look that stopped him from responding. “If Tao ever comes to me in tears from something YOU’VE done, not only will I beat you up, but I will also make sure that your face becomes so deformed that you’ll never get a boy or girl in your life.”

Suho grabbed Tao in a very protective manner, like a mother bear protecting her cubs. Tao tried to protest, but Suho covered his mouth. “Shush, I’m protecting you.”

Kris laughed and grabbed Tao from Suho and slung an arm around Tao. “I promise I won’t hurt him, and I’ll always keep him happy, because that’s what I always do anyways,” Kris said, with a smug smile.

It took Tao a moment to acknowledge the fact that Kris was hugging Tao and what Kris had said, but when Tao finally processed everything, he immediately became a red blushing mess. “Ah Kris, I believe you won’t hurt me so everything’s fine.” Tao tried to get out of Kris’s arms; even if Tao felt more comfy than he felt in a while, but he didn’t want Kris to notice how red his face got.

Suho was surprised to see the amount of focus in Kris’s eyes; he hasn’t seen Kris so focused since that one time Kris bet that he could chug five liters of coke in under six minutes (it was disgusting, and Suho really wished Kris didn’t look so focused about THAT). Suho had faith in Kris about taking care of Tao.

Suho wiped the stern face and grabbed Tao from Kris. “Okay fine, but you can’t hog Tao to yourself.” Tao didn’t know what it felt like to have so many people like him before (it was only two, but in Tao’s head it felt like twenty, because he only had one friend to begin with). Tao couldn’t help but break out into a big smile and giggled.

“Mmm, let’s go to dinner now, I’m hungry for once.” Tao said, jokingly, knowing that Kris has been eating basically half of Tao’s food because Tao could never finish.

“Let’s go Tao!!” Suho said, grabbing his bag and walking ahead of Kris. Suho looked behind him and stuck a tongue out at Kris. Tao looked behind after, while Suho dragged Tao by the hand. Tao smiled at Kris with a super bright smile, and Kris returned a smile just as bright. Tao turned around with a small grin still on his face as he watched Suho hold onto Tao’s hand and drag him to go faster.

“I can’t wait to tell Baekhyun; he’s going to flip out!” Suho said, excited for dinner.

Tao laughed. He started to imagine Baekhyun’s surprised face and his (most likely) loud yell when Suho tells him. Tao wished he could videotape it, but his phone was out of battery – a lost cause.

 

As they all sat down at the usual dining table, Baekhyun joined the three five minutes later.

“Baekhyun guess what!!” Suho said, excitedly. “Hint: it’s about Kris.”

“Hmm,” Baekhyun started to jog his memory. He knew that Suho wouldn’t be this excited about another one of Kris’s crazy food bets. The four whole pizzas in fifteen minutes was extremely vomit-worthy to watch, and Suho’s face when telling Baekhyun was more like on the verge of throwing up than on the verge of exploding into confetti and sparkles, like the one he had on now.

Suho’s eyes kept darting between Tao and Kris, as a second hint. Baekhyun tried to think even harder; he knew they were roommates… they DO go on jogs together occasionally, unless Kris gave up, which isn’t too hard to imagine. “Did Kris collapse on a jog??” Baekhyun could imagine Suho being happy about Kris falling.

Suho immediately deflated and pursed his lips. “No you idiot!!” Suho sighed, knowing that Baekhyun’s head wouldn’t think of anything good. “Kris asked Tao out and now they’re dating.”

“Oh, okay,” Baekhyun didn’t process anything after the word idiot, but once his brain sorted all of Suho’s words out, it finally hit him. “WAIT, WHAT?? KRIS ACTUALLY GOT THE BALLS TO ASK TAO OUT??”

Suho slapped a hand to his own head in frustration. “Yes good job.”

“OH MY GOSHH!! TAOO, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME EARLIER?” Baekhyun shook Tao’s shoulders and nearly jumped on him as he whined.

Tao’s only response was a high pitched giggle, which made the entire table brighter. Baekhyun immediately started asking questions, being the hyperactive child he is. “When did Kris do it? How did he ask you out? Have you guys kissed yet? Or…” Baekhyun brought his voice down to a whisper, “did you do the nasty?”

Tao immediately pushed Baekhyun’s shoulder, out of embarrassment and shock that Baekhyun would have such inappropriate thoughts like that. Tao was still a child, and mainly oblivious to the fact that “the nasty” was done by nearly everyone around him.

Kris laughed when he saw Tao’s extravagant reaction. “We haven’t done anything yet, Baekhyun. Get your disgusting head out of the gutter.” Kris started to recall the embarrassing memory of asking Tao out. “I left a bunch of roses in the dorm telling Tao to meet me in the park where we usually jog out.” Baekhyun leaned in, but Suho did too, because Tao didn’t give a lot of details on how Kris asked Tao out either. “He showed up… and I confessed that I really liked Tao.”

Kris glanced out Tao to see him cupping his face to stop the blush from being too noticeable; Kris smiled. “And then he said he would be okay with going out with me and that’s all.” Kris stopped staring at Tao and looked at Suho and Baekhyun, who both had dumb grins on their faces.

“OH, I forgot the most important part! After we started walking back to the dorm, Tao asked if we could hold hands!” Kris sounded extremely over affectionate and gushy about a minor detail, but to him it meant more than his dog back at home.

Tao’s face reddened even more. “Kris, you didn’t need to share that!”

Suho and Baekhyun acted like overdramatic fangirls. Suho was the first to explode: “Oh my gosh you guys are too cute! This is just way too adorable for my tiny little heart.”

Kris laughed, while Tao kept trying to rub the red out of his cheeks. Tao also rubbed his eyes, with his even deeper eyebags; the tutoring session really did exhaust him. He stood up to throw his remaining dinner away, but not before turning to Kris. “Do you want the rest? I’m not hungry anymore.”

Kris immediately grabbed the tray. “Do you even need to ask anymore?” He asked as he immediately started wolfing down the remaining noodle strands.

Tao grabbed his stuff. “I’m gonna go back to work on homework now, and I’m really tired from tutoring you two.” He said as he made a pointed glance at Suho and Kris.

Suho gasped dramatically. “I was a perfect student! It was all Kris’s fault.”

Kris scoffed, making him almost choke on the noodles. “Perfect?? You cried for twenty minutes straight and wasted so much time because Tao had to get you to calm down.”

Suho immediately stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Kris!” He pretended to check his phone for the time. “Oh well! I have to go do some of the stuff that I have to do now!” Suho really didn’t want to remember the tears he shed because of music theory; those were tears that he wish he could forget. Suho immediately grabbed his stuff and made a quick wave before leaving.

“Kris, I’m gonna go back too, I’ll see you back at the dorm.” Tao said, as he started to leave.

“Okay!” Kris said between noodles. When he finally stopped slurping to take time to chew his food, his eyes met a very excited and expectant Baekhyun.

“Tell me more!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will there be the nasty? I dunno, we'll seeeee  
> I hope yall are okay with the slice of life vibe with the story


	10. Chapter 10

“MOVIE NIGHT!!” Baekhyun yelled out, as he entered Tao’s and Kris’s dorm room. Kris and Tao decided that they should get a T.V for their dorm room. Watching things from a tiny laptop screen didn’t work for them, given how tall the two were. The second Suho and Baekhyun found out about it, they decided to crash in their dorm room every Friday to watch movies together.

Tao let Baekhyun in. Kris was currently out with Suho trying to get snacks for all of them. “What movies did you choose for us to watch this time?” Tao asked Baekhyun, as he plopped himself in front of the T.V and started fiddling with the remote to choose the movies from his Netflix account.

“Horror movie extravaganza!!” Baekhyun exclaimed, prepping the T.V.

Tao immediately froze; he was not good at handling anything remotely scary. He could act like he wasn’t scared in front of people, but at night, the movies would haunt his mind. The last time he watched scary movies was with Sehun; Tao wasn’t able to sleep by himself for four nights. Each night, he had to go into his younger brother’s room and ask for help, so Tao wasn’t very confident that it would be any better now.

Kris and Suho entered the dorm with a handful of snacks; half of them were probably going to end up with Kris.

“So what are we going to watch today?” Kris asked Baekhyun.

“Horror movies! I’m so excited!!” Baekhyun said, getting ready to start the first movie.

“Oh god, I really can’t handle horror movies.” Suho immediately said. “I think I’ll watch movies with you guys another day. You can keep my snacks though!”

“Awww, you have to stay though! Three people aren’t enough!” Kris whined. Tao hoped that Baekhyun and Kris would just get rid of the idea of watching horror movies in general so that he wouldn’t need to admit that he was scared too.

“No wait,” Baekhyun said. “I think I can call a couple of other friends to watch the movies with us so it won’t be as empty.”

“See? You guys don’t need me to watch movies with you.” Suho started getting ready to leave again.

Tao needed to change the situation as fast as possible. “Hey, we could watch the two Avengers movies instead of horror movies so Suho can stay! We gotta make sure all four of us are here for movies so that the tradition stays, right?”

“But I wanted to watch horror movies…” Kris said.

Tao felt bad about raining on Kris’s parade, but Tao really didn’t want to watch horror movies; he needed to do some serious cute stuff to change Kris’s mind. He decided to pull Kris’s arm and looked up at Kris. “But Kriiiiis, I want Suho to stay!!”

Kris couldn’t handle all the cuteness. Tao purposely acting cute to Kris was very rare, so when Tao did it, Kris was extremely vulnerable to it. But before Kris could help Tao convince Baekhyun to change the movie times, Baekhyun already called two of his other friends to come over and watch the horror movies.

“Yep, that settles that, bye guys!” Suho said, quickly escaping the dorm room.

Tao’s plan failed, and he was doomed to watch horror movies with the rest of them. He contemplated leaving, but he couldn’t just leave his own dorm room to have Kris and Baekhyun in charge; they would completely trash the room.

Once Baekhyun’s friends, Chanyeol and Chen came, Baekhyun pressed the start button to being playing the popular Korean horror movie, _The Host_. All five of them sat on the couch and there was plenty of room for each of them, but the second the eerie music started, Tao immediately sat closer to Kris. Kris thought of Tao’s sudden closeness as Tao finally being more comfortable with the whole dating thing and threw a comforting arm around Tao, but in reality, it was just because Tao was already terrified.

As the movie went on, Tao leaned more into Kris and curled into a tinier ball against Kris’s chest. There were some funny parts that did leave Tao laughing his usual high pitched laugh, but when all of the actual horror and gore started, Tao couldn’t handle it. He made sure that Kris wouldn’t suspect he was terrified: he grounded his butt into the couch so when any jumpscares occurred, he wouldn’t jump too high.

When the movie was finished, Tao made sure to wipe away all of his tears before they turned the lights back on. The tears weren’t just from the scary parts, but also from all the sad moments; the movie was good, it had lots of drama and comedy so it wasn’t just a horror movie, but it was still way too scary. Tao knew he wasn’t going to sleep at night.

“What’d you think of the movie, Tao?” Kris asked Tao the one question he didn’t want to be asked.

_Look manly, look manly, don’t admit that you cried,_ Tao thought. “It was pretty scary, but the plot was actually good.”

“Another movie!!” Baekhyun said, as he fumbled with the remote to pull up the next movie.

The rest of the four were pumped up to watch the next movie, _Event Horizon_. Kris went to make popcorn, so Tao used this time to crawl off the couch and grab a blanket before mentally preparing himself for another terrifying movie.

When Kris sat back down, Tao immediately curled back up to their original position. Kris smiled and pulled Tao closer to him.

Everyone else had a good time watching the horror movies. Chen’s voice filled up the entire room whenever he got scared, but he always had a smile on his face because it never really fazed him. Chanyeol just stared at the movie with big round eyes and occasionally screamed and laughed when something scared him. Kris jumped occasionally because of the movie, but otherwise, he was also bright with a giant smile on his face, and Baekhyun just burst out laughing every single time something happened; Tao really wished he could be like them. Every single time they laughed, Tao would try to muster up a laugh so the mood wasn’t spoiled.

This movie was way scarier than the first one: no plot, just a horrifying space movie with tons of gore, nasty aliens, and jumpscares. Tao was definitely ready for the movie to finish within the first thirty minutes.

“Next time, we should force Suho to watch a horror movie with us; THAT, would be hilarious,” Baekhyun said, as he got his jacket to get ready to leave.

Chen laughed. “You guys better videotape it for me so we can watch his reaction!”

“We’ll figure it out one day, don’t worry, Chen.” Kris said, getting the door for them.

Once the three other guys left, Tao and Kris sat in the dorm room. Tao was still curled up on the couch with his blanket, with wide eyes, while Kris started cleaning up all the snack packets that he devoured.

“Tao, you can shower while I’m cleaning up the dorms, so when you come back, everything will be clean,” Kris said.

Tao looked up at Kris. “What?” Nothing registered in his head after the last horror movie ended; Tao only just realized that Chen, Chanyeol and Baekhyun left.

“You can go shower right now, while I clean up the room.” Kris said as he gestured to the mess Chen and Chanyeol made when they threw their popcorn around.

The thought of stepping into the empty bathroom, alone, terrified Tao; he needed to get Kris to come with him without admitting that he was scared. “Uhh…” Tao sat up from his spot on the couch. “We can shower together to save time and then clean together to save more time…”

“You want us to shower… together?” Kris asked, with wide eyes.

Tao immediately blushed because of how inappropriate it must’ve sounded. “No, not in that way… just so we can save time and water, right?” Tao paused. “And cleaning the dorm together sounds more fun than cleaning the dorm room by yourself… unless it’s only me that feels that way…” Tao tried to act as cute as possible to get Kris to shower with him; he did NOT want to go anywhere alone.

Kris’s heart immediately skipped a beat because of how cute Tao looked. “NO! I wanna clean with you!” Kris immediately started rummaging through his drawers to get clean clothes. Tao grinned to himself because his plan actually worked.

Back at home, Tao always asked his brother or Sehun to shower with him when he was scared, so suddenly asking Kris to shower with him wasn’t unusual to Tao. The only reason why it felt so weird was because Kris and Tao were actually dating; hopefully Kris won’t be too awkward in the shower.

Tao allowed Kris to lead the way to the shower, mainly because Tao wanted Kris to be in the front, just in case any monsters showed up.

Tao stepped in the shower first and waited for Kris to show up. Kris never stepped into the shower, so after two minutes, Tao looked outside to see a very awkward and fully clothed Kris.

“Hurry up,” Tao urged, “you’re wasting time.” Tao mainly just wanted to be in and out of the showers as quickly as possible so nothing scary could happen.

“It’s just way too awkward to shower WITH you, Tao!” Kris sputtered. “I know you probably think of it as something normal, with no sexual connotations, but I think of it as seeing a freaking buffet in front of me without being able to touch it.”

Tao immediately blushed; he never thought about Kris’s feelings on the matter. “Uhh… then can you just wait outside while I shower?”

“OR, I could just go back to the room and clean while you shower,” Kris said, getting ready to leave.

“NO!” Tao exclaimed, but realized he sounded too panicky when he saw a wide-eyed Kris look back at him. “I mean, you might as well stay so you can go in the shower the second I’m done, right?”

Thankfully, Kris was as dense as he always was and sat back down on the bench in the bathroom with a very serious thinking face in his head. “Thank you Kris!” Tao sang, with a big smile.

Kris smiled sheepishly as he saw Tao disappear back into the shower. All Kris could think about while Tao was in the shower was why Tao insisted on having Kris stay in the bathroom with him. _This hardly counts as quality time_ , Kris thought to himself.

 

Thirty, that’s right, THIRTY FREAKING MINUTES LATER, Tao turned off the faucet and got out of the shower. Kris put on a stern face. “Whyyy did you ask me to stay outside of the shower to ‘save time’ if you were going to take so long in the shower anyways?”

Tao immediately felt bad, but he NEEDED Kris to stay, otherwise, Tao wouldn’t be able to leave the bathroom by himself. “I’m sorry…” Tao looked down at his feet, feeling bad for taking a long time.

Kris’s gaze immediately softened. “Ahh, it’s okay,” he said, as he rubbed Tao’s wet hair.

“You can take as long as you want, I’ll wait right here for you!” Tao said, looking up at Kris.

Kris smiled, “Okay, but I won’t take too long because I know what a reasonable shower time is.” He joked, patting a pouting Tao’s head one more time before heading into shower.

 

While Tao was waiting for Kris to come out of the shower, he sat at the bench trying to distract himself. Even though Kris’s showering noise and humming was constant, Tao kept hearing creaks from the floor outside of the bathroom and rustling from outside the building. Tao kept on shivering and reminding himself that Kris was only five feet away from him, there was nothing to worry about.

 

Ten minutes later, Kris stepped out of the shower and said, “now THAT’S a reasonable shower time,” while trying to dry his hair.

Tao walked over to Kris and grabbed his hand to drag him over to the sinks. “Okay okay, I get my shower time was a little long but now we’re both done so let’s brush our teeth and get back to the dorm okay?”

Kris chuckled as he walked with Tao. “Okay!”

Five minutes later, they were back at the dorm, on the floor, trying to clean all of the empty snack packets up. They finished relatively quickly and went to sleep.

“Good night Tao!” Kris said, as he turned off the lights.

“Good night Kris,” Tao said quietly, already nervous that the lights were turned off. Every single shadow that Tao saw reminded him of a ghost or monster. Every single time he closed his eyes, all Tao could visualize were the terrifying scenes from the horror movie. Tao didn’t want to bother Kris like he bothered him with the shower business, so Tao decided to stay silent. Tao buried deeper and deeper into his covers as the night went on.

 

Kris woke up in the middle of the night because of a sound he heard. In his half-asleep daze, Kris quickly checked the clock. “2:37 a.m.” _Great, I still have time to sleep_ , Kris thought, but as he started to settle back into his bed, he realized that the noise was coming from the bed across from him, and that the noise turned out to be Tao, crying.

“Tao? Are you okay?” Kris whispered.

Tao immediately stopped sniffling and tried to keep his voice as even as possible. “Uhh, yeah. I’m fine, go back to sleep Kris.” Tao felt bad about the fact that he woke up Kris with his crying.

“No, you’re not okay, you’re crying, aren’t you?” Kris started to get up from his bed to go over and check on Tao.

“No no, I’m fine.” Tao insisted. “You should go back to sleep-“ Tao was cut off when Kris turned on the lights. Kris saw Tao immediately try to cover his face with the blankets.

Kris knelt next to Tao’s bed and tried to remove Tao’s blanket from his face. When Tao finally gave up, Kris saw Tao’s red eyes, swollen from crying, Tao’s deeper eye bags, and tear-streaked face.

“Oh my god Tao, what’s wrong??” Kris asked, urgently.

Tao immediately felt even worse for waking Kris up because he was scared of the stupid horror movies. “Do you promise not to laugh?”

“Why would I laugh?” Kris asked, shocked that Tao even felt the need to ask.

“Fine.” Tao took a deep breath. “I was having nightmares from the horror movies we were watching today”

“You were crying because of the horror movies we watched today?” Kris asked slowly, trying to let it register in his head.

“Yeah…” Tao replied, as he kept wiping his eyes. “Sorry, I look really stupid right now for waking you up with such a stupid reason, you should just go back to sleep.”

Tao looked away, expecting Kris to laugh, or complain, or walk away to turn off the lights and go back to sleep, but Kris gave Tao a big warm hug. “Why are you apologizing for being scared? You should’ve said something when Baekhyun even mentioned horror movies.”

Tao cried into Kris’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for not saying anything…”

Kris pulled back from the hug and grasped Tao’s shoulders. “Stop apologizing, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t say anything because you didn’t want to ‘get in the way’ of our movie watching, right?”

Tao gave a slow nod as he continued to sniffle. Kris pulled Tao back in for the hug. “Next time, don’t feel bad. I don’t like seeing the person I like cry so much over something that could’ve been prevented, okay?”

Kris felt Tao nod into Kris’s shoulder. Kris smiled as he continued to rub Tao’s back.

“Would you feel more comfortable if you slept on my bed with me tonight?” Kris asked, as he held onto Tao. Tao nodded his head slowly. Kris smiled, “okay.”

Tao got onto Kris’s bed first and immediately started snuggling into Kris’s blankets. He was enveloped with the warmth of the blankets and the smell of Kris; Tao immediately started feeling sleepy. Kris turned off the lights and joined Tao on his bed. Once Kris got in, Tao immediately snuggled closer to Kris and started playing with his shirt.

“Thank you for letting me sleep next to you tonight,” Tao said in a small voice.

“Don’t even worry about it Tao,” Kris said, as he brought Tao’s head up to give a peck on Tao’s forehead. Kris kept his arm around Tao’s waist, as he started to doze back to sleep.

Tao immediately relaxed. He was extremely thankful for having such a nice person like him. Tao looked up and saw Kris’s relaxed face, eyes closed, mouth a little open. Tao moved up a little on the bed to give Kris a quick kiss on the lips, something that Kris was not expecting. Kris’s eyes immediately shot open; he saw Tao in his original position, trying not to show Kris his face. Kris smiled and brought Tao closer to him as they both fell asleep.

Tao slept with no more nightmares that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for my limited knowledge of horror movies, and for making Tao cry


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating in a while!! College, badminton, sprained foot, school, everything caught up. TT^TT I hope you like the fluff!

Tao woke up and found himself more comfortable than he usually was in bed. He looked up and saw Kris’s relaxed sleeping face; Tao smiled. He checked the clock quickly: 9:30 a.m. _I still have time to sleep; thank god it’s Saturday_ , Tao thought, as he snuggled closer to Kris’s chest to stay warm.

Tao couldn’t fall back asleep; his circadian rhythm was too exact, so he just stayed in the bed as he waited for Kris to wake up. _He looks so peaceful while sleeping_ , Tao thought, as he stared at Kris’s relaxed face. _Thank god he doesn’t snore loudly_. Tao remembered sleeping with Sehun before; that was NOT a peaceful sleep.

After fifteen minutes of staring at nothing and being alone with his thoughts, Tao decided to get up. The second he shifted, Kris groaned and pulled Tao tighter. “Don’t go,” Kris grumbled.

Tao grinned at how clingy Kris was right now. “But if you’re gonna make me stay in bed for two more hours while you sleep, I have to at least get my phone first.”

“No, you have to stay just like this.” Kris mumbled, still holding onto Tao. Tao stared at Kris for a couple seconds, until he heard Kris’s stomach grumble loudly. Tao couldn’t contain his high pitched laugh and let it out.

Kris immediately started laughing with Tao and started to get up from bed. Kris rubbed his eyes so they would wake up a little more; he placed a hand on Tao’s head. “Did you sleep better?” Kris asked, worried about Tao. The horror movies seemed to terrify Tao last night, so Kris wasn’t sure if Tao made it through the night or not.

Tao nodded, with a little smile. “Yeah, I slept well, after you let me sleep on your bed.”

“That’s good,” Kris said, as he started to get off of his bed. Winter was finally settling in for them, so Kris immediately shivered as the cold air in the dorm hit him. They both changed into warmer clothing and bundled up for their trek to the dining halls. Tao noticed Kris pulled a red snowcap over his head with a large pompom on the top, and he immediately started playing with it as they walked to the dining hall.

Kris laughed. “You’re just like a cat playing with a ball of yarn, what’s wrong with you?”

Tao giggled. “It’s so fuzzyyyy.” He said, as he kept hitting the pompom.

Tao stopped playing and started walking next to Kris again. They started talking about their plans for the day.

“I want to work on some new music today; I have a couple of tracks lined up, but the lyrics aren’t done yet,” Tao said.

“So that means we can’t hang out that much today?” Kris asked. He knew that when Tao got into the mood of writing music, there was no stopping him.

Tao immediately noticed the drop in Kris’s tone and quickly grabbed his hand and swung it while they were walking. “Don’t worry, I’ll make time for you. You have to make sure I take breaks, right? Don’t want me to collapse at the table again after working for twenty hours straight.” Tao laughed. The memory was definitely not the best one.

_“Tao!! Are you okay?” Kris shouted, seeing Tao totally passed out on his papers._

_Tao didn’t even stir from all the sleep deprivation._

_Kris immediately shook Tao’s arm and grabbed some water to feed him. “Tao stay with me, why did you work for so long?”_

_“Dunno,” Tao responded, already passing out again._

Everything else from that memory was hazy to Tao; the next thing he remembered was being on the bed with a bottle of water next to his head.

Kris was so shocked that Tao basically read his mind AND was holding his hand in public that he didn’t respond properly. “You’re okay with holding my hand now?”

Tao rolled his eyes. “If I can sleep in the same bed as you, I should be able to hold hands with you.”

Right then, Suho and Baekhyun ran into them from behind. “WHAT’S THIS ABOUT SLEEPING IN THE SAME BED??” Baekhyun asked loudly, garnering some looks.

Suho immediately grabbed Baekhyun to make him shut up. “You’re such an idiot.” Suho said.

Baekhyun immediately opened his mouth to argue, but he closed it once he felt Tao’s eyes making a hole into the side of his head.

“Anyways,” Suho said, trying to quickly change the subject. “Tao, I need desperate help with music theory, yet again.”

“Oh man… I do too.” Kris said sheepishly.

Tao sighed. “Sure, we can go to the library tomorrow.”

“Thank you Tao!!” Suho exclaimed cheerfully, as he ruffled Tao’s hair.

They continued to walk towards the dining hall together, while Suho and Kris complained about Music Theory.

“Wait Baekhyun, you sleep more in Music Theory than any of us. How do you NOT need help??” Kris asked.

“Yah, what’s that supposed to mean,” Baekhyun huffed. “I study with Chen and Chanyeol. Chanyeol knows music theory because of all of his excessive guitar playing.”

Kris nodded. “That makes a lot more sense. Because if you were pulling off A’s and B’s by yourself, you would’ve had to cheat off of someone for sure.”

Baekhyun huffed even harder and decided to take Kris’s snowcap as a punishment and stuck it on his own head. “You can’t get this back until you score higher than me on a music theory test!” He yelled out as he ran all the way to the dining hall.

Kris immediately started to run after Baekhyun in an effort to get his hat back, but to no avail, because Kris’s running skills were nothing compared to Baekhyun’s.

Once Tao and Suho caught up, Kris was out of breath. “You ran for like ten seconds, how can you be so out of breath?” Suho asked.

“Shut uppppp,” Kris said, as Tao tried to help Kris get to the dining room.

“Kris, we should get back into jogging. After all, basketball season is coming in a couple of months.” Tao said.

“That’ll be a problem for a different day.” Kris replied; the thought of jogging haunted Kris’s mind.

 

Once they returned back to the dorm rooms, Tao sat at his desk and put on earphones to work on his music. Kris decided to attempt to work on his research project on difference between the Baroque period and the Classical period in music, which only lasted for seventeen minutes.

After three hours, Tao had not moved from his position. He was furiously writing down and typing down different things, and then he was crumpling papers or stabbing the backspace key; the creative process didn’t come smoothly. Meanwhile, Kris had left the room four times to find snacks, talk to friends, get drinks, and basically anything else to distract himself from the homework. Kris finally sat down to officially start his research again, and he was able to work for a solid twelve minutes, until he decided it was lunchtime.

Kris walked over to Tao to get him to take a break. _He works so hard_ , Kris thought, as he looked at Tao from aside. Kris admired Tao for never getting distracted when it came to working; whether it was boring music theory homework to working out, Tao did everything whole-heartedly. Once Kris was sure that Tao was finished writing his lyrics, Kris tried to get Tao to move.

“Taoo, you’ve been working for three hours straight. We should go get lunch now.” Kris said, putting his arms around Tao’s shoulders as he stood over him.

“Shush,” Tao responded, giving Kris an earbud. “Listen to this and tell me how it sounds.”

Kris placed the earbud in his ear, and Tao played his most recent track for him. It started out with Tao’s vocals, which were as smooth as always, and then the song dropped and the bass kicked in. Kris had the urge to dance, but he knew he couldn’t so he tried to relax.

Once the song was over, he looked at Tao and saw two very wide questioning eyes, a hint of nervousness behind them as well. “Well??” Tao asked.

Kris ruffled Tao’s hair. “Your song is amazing, like all of your other songs, and it’s a different from your mellow songs from before; I liked it a lot. Good job Tao!” Kris gave a quick kiss to Tao’s cheek; he was satisfied when he saw Tao’s face redden considerably.

“Thank you Kris,” Tao said quietly, as he stretched out his back and neck.

Kris grabbed one of Tao’s arms, “let’s go to lunch now!!”

Tao smiled. “Okay, let’s go.”

 

Even though it was the afternoon, the air around them was still super chilly. Kris and Tao both bundled up, but they were still shivering on their way to lunch. Kris was considerably warmer than Tao, so when he saw Tao shiver, Kris grabbed one of Tao’s hands to help him feel warmer. Tao immediately relaxed, and leaned closer to Kris.

“How do you stay so warm in this weather?” Tao asked Kris, trying to lean more into Kris to get warmer.

Kris smiled as he saw Tao try to snuggle in. “Maybe it’s because I wore three layers, or MAYBE it’s because I don’t choose fashion over comfort.” Kris said, as he pointed at Tao’s thin leather Gucci jacket.

“Hey! It looks good and it’s form-fitting. At least I have you to stay warm throughout the winter.” Tao said, as he smoothed out his jacket once again, while his other arm was around Kris’s arm to stay warm.

They got to the dining hall and made sure to clean their plates once they got them, or more like Kris made sure that both of their plates were cleaned. Tao also got some hot chocolate, and Kris thought Tao looked absolutely adorable trying to softly blow the hot chocolate to cool it down.

As Tao blew on his drink, he noticed Kris staring. “What are you looking at?” Tao asked, as he put his drink down.

“You look so cute trying to cool down your drink,” Kris said, with a laugh. Tao started to pout, which was way too cute for his face, and Kris reached across the table and cupped Tao’s face with his hands. “You’re just too cute, what can I do??” Kris said, as he kissed Tao’s nose lightly.

Tao immediately blushed again; he pushed Kris’s arms away. “I’m not cute; I’m handsome.” He said, with a pout.

Kris tried to stop himself from bursting out laughing and rubbed Tao’s hair. “Yes, my boyfriend is the most handsome person in this world.”

Tao tried to calm himself down by attempting to fix his hair; Kris always made him flustered, and there was nothing Tao could do to prevent it.

They quietly made their way back to the dorm room to go back to work, more like Tao went back to work, Kris kept trying to distract Tao and get attention.

 

At four in the afternoon, Tao looked up from his writing to check his phone. Kris noticed that Tao stood up quickly and started getting ready to go.

“What’s wrong?” Kris asked, slightly concerned by how fast Tao was moving.

“I got an email from my music composition professor to meet him in twenty minutes.” Tao replied, trying to smooth out his hair.

Kris got up from his bed. “Oooh,” Kris cooed, “Do you know what he’s going to talk about?”

“I have a hunch,” Tao said, without giving further information. Kris decided to leave Tao be; he’ll ask Tao about it when he gets back.

“Stay warm Tao!!” Kris said, as he took his giant red scarf and wrapped it around Tao’s head.

Tao giggled, as he adjusted the scarf to not be around his eyes. “Thanks Kris; I’ll be back by dinner, so we can walk together then.”

“Okay,” Kris said with a smile, as he leaned over to peck a quick kiss on Tao’s cheek.

Tao smiled. “Bye Kris!”

“Bye Tao!” And with that, Tao was gone from the dorm.

Kris didn’t know how to occupy his time while Tao was gone, because he left without giving Kris any information. Kris decided to spend his time doing what he used to do back home: eat. Kris opened another new bag of potato chips as he called his sister back home.

_“Kris! You haven’t called us in a while!”_

“Ahh, busy with college stuff. I’m bored right now so what’s been going on back home?” Kris asked, trying to distract himself from Tao.

_“Hmm”_ His sister replied, thinking hard. _“Mom and dad turned your room into a room for Milo._ ”

“WHAT??” Kris’s room was pretty large, so to occupy it with one tiny dog was extreme. “Where am I supposed to sleep when I go back again?”

“ _Couch, floor, bathtub, trash can, there are many places for you, don’t worry.”_   His sister said.

“Thanks.” Kris replied.

They talked for the next thirty minutes, until Tao came back.

“My roommate came back so I have to go!” Kris said, immediately getting off of his bed.

_“Oh, you mean Tao??”_ She asked. _“You need to get me his autograph!”_

Kris laughed. “Yeah, I’ll get it for you, maybe.”

“ _Kris!_ ” His sister called out. “ _Hmmph, fine. Bye Kris!!_ ”

“Bye!!” Kris replied.

Kris ran over to Tao; Tao had a dazed face on, so Kris immediately became worried. “Are you okay?? Was the meeting bad?”

“No, it wasn’t. I got accepted into a study abroad program to Korea to learn about the music composition process there.” Tao replied, still dazed.

“That’s great!” Kris said, giving Tao’s shoulders a squeeze. “So why do you look so out of it??”

“It’s for three months, and it starts in two weeks.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING FOR LIKE TWO MONTHS OR SOMETHING  
> TESTING AND COLLEGE AND TRAVELING AND PROJECTS ALL CAUGHT UP TO MEEE  
> I hope you'll enjoy this chapter

Kris ran right out the dorm room (well not ran, but walked as fast as he could). He wasn’t sure what to think about. Tao was going to leave for three months, right when their relationship was going smoothly. Kris knew studying abroad was very important for Tao and his music, but Kris wasn’t prepared for the sudden onset of information.

In the middle of his speed walk, he started to feel bad about leaving the dorm room with no explanation. _Hopefully he’ll understand that I need time to think, right?_ Kris hoped to himself.

Kris ran to the park and stopped at the area where he first asked Tao out, so he could gather himself together. He regretted not wearing a jacket, as he clutched his arms together and vigorously rubbed them to keep him warm.

_Why didn’t Tao tell me about this a little earlier? I know he likes keeping things to himself, but this is huge… I’ll just go back and tell him that I support him, because this is extremely important to his music career, and it’s not like he’s leaving forever; we’ll see each other again and it’ll be all fine, right?_ Kris paused while walking. _I really need to go back now…_ Kris started turning back from the park to head back to the dorm room.

When he got back, Kris took a deep breath before entering the room. _Make sure you support his actions; he’s not breaking up with you or anything_ , but that thought just got Kris even more nervous. _What if he goes to Korea and finds a super attractive Korean guy and decides to leave me oh no…_

Before Kris swung the door open, he tried to recollect his thoughts once more. He didn’t even really know why he ran out in the first place, but then a thought dawned on him: he was crazier about Tao than he thought. Even though they had only dated for a couple of months now, Tao already felt like a second home. The thought of Tao leaving for so long was terrifying to Kris; he didn’t want to be in an empty dorm room without Tao’s high pitched laugh, his fashion talks, and all of his music. Kris just then realized one of the biggest things in his life: he loved Tao. Kris finally knew exactly what he needed to tell Tao, so he opened the door, only to find the room empty.

_Oh god, did he leave because of me?_ Kris immediately started to worry; he only left to gather his thoughts.

Kris called Tao’s phone six times but to no avail, his calls all went straight to voicemail. Kris started panicking even more. He left the dorm room again and walked around the park to see if Tao was taking a walk; Kris knew Tao enjoyed taking long walks by himself, alone with his thoughts and music.

After searching around for thirty minutes, Kris decided to call some of his friends to help him look. He knew Suho was the most reliable, so he called him first.

_“Hello?”_ Suho said through the phone.

“Hey Suho, I need some help. Tao ran away from the dorm room, and I have no idea where he is.” Kris explained the situation to him very quickly.

“ _Oh I know where Tao is.”_ Suho replied, curtly.

Kris didn’t notice a thing. “Oh thank god, where is he??”

_“He’s right here, and you’re not allowed to talk to him,”_ Suho said.

Kris was extremely confused. “Wait, why? I really need to talk to him about the entire study abroad thing; I have to apologize to him!”

Suho would’ve hung up earlier, but the urgency in Kris’s voice made him reconsider. _“I’ll ask Tao what he wants first and then I’ll call you back.”_ Suho hung up.

 

Suho turned to Tao, who was sitting on Suho’s bed and holding onto a pillow tightly. When Kris left, Tao felt terrible about signing up for the study abroad program and didn’t know what to do, so he ran from the dorm to Suho; he had no one else to go to, honestly. Suho reminded Tao of his mom anyways, so Tao felt like he was the right person to run to.

_“Suho, I really messed up with Kris,” Tao said, as Suho ushered Tao into his dorm, tears welling up in his eyes. “I signed up for a study abroad program in South Korea that’ll be three months long, but I never told Kris about it, so he ran out of the dorm… what should I do??”_

_Suho desperately tried to calm down Tao when the first tears started spilling from his eyes._

_“It’s not your fault, Tao! He probably just overreacted or something. He’ll talk to you soon enough about it; he’s a sensible guy, I think.” Suho said, while rubbing Tao’s back._

_Tao sniffled as he plopped down on Suho’s bed and grabbed a pillow to hug. “I really hope so…” Tao rubbed his eyes and tears. “Ahh, my eyes are gonna get so puffy.” He said with a laugh._

_Suho ruffled Tao’s hair with a small smile. “You can stay here until you’re ready to go back.”_

_After ten minutes, Tao’s phone rang._

_“Oh… it’s Kris.” Tao said, as he glanced at it._

_“You don’t need to answer it if you don’t want to.” Suho said, immediately going into protective mother mode. ‘No one hurts makes my child cry like this” Suho thought._

_Tao let the phone calls go ignored all six times, until Suho’s phone rang._

_“I’ll answer this, but I won’t say anything without asking you for confirmation first, and I’ll put this on speaker.” Suho said, making sure Tao understood what he was saying._

_Tao gave a small nod. Just hearing the worry in Kris’s voice for Tao made Tao almost tear up again._

Suho hung up the phone and turned to Tao. “What do you want to do?”

Tao hugged the pillow closer to him. “I wanna talk to him… but I’m kind of scared.”

Suho ruffled Tao’s hair. “He said he wanted to apologize, so I’m pretty sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

Tao sighed. “Okay. Where are we going to do it?”

Suho sat up straight and gave a smile. “In here of course! If he makes you cry again, I’ll have better access to his face.”

Tao laughed and patted his cheeks to make sure they weren’t still puffy from crying. “Okay. Can you call him and tell him to come over here then?”

Suho nodded while picking up his phone, “yup, I’ll call him right now.”

 

Kris hung up the phone with Suho. _I gotta get over there right now and clear things up with Tao. I can’t let him go now…_

Kris legitimately ran to Suho’s room, which also surprised Kris, because he never felt so strongly about another person before. When he got to Suho’s room, he was slightly out of breath, and he knocked on the door. “Tao!” he called out, “please don’t be mad at me, I just want to talk to you!”

When the door opened, Kris expected to see Tao and not a shorter, grumpy-looking Suho. “Oh, hi Suho! Can I talk to Tao right now??”

“Listen here buddy.” Suho whisper-yelled, trying to make sure Tao couldn’t hear anything. “If you make Tao cry in here, I will punch you square in the face, and you won’t be allowed to talk to Tao until AFTER he comes back from his program.”

Kris gulped. He never thought Suho would be so intimidating. “Don’t worry, I don’t want him to cry as much as you don’t, so let me just talk to Tao.” Kris said, trying to sound confident and not terrified by the shorter man standing in front of him.

“Fine,” Suho said, letting Kris into the room. “But I’m staying in here.” He added, closing the door behind him.

Kris sighed, as he turned his back toward Suho so that he could properly look at Tao.

Tao was sitting on Suho’s bed, hugging a pillow. Kris thought Tao looked so cute, and if not for the current situation, he would’ve given Tao a big hug to that the pillow didn’t need to be there anymore. Kris decided to just sit on the bed next to Tao. Kris saw Tao about to open his mouth, but Kris stopped Tao from saying anything. “I don’t need an apology from you, because you don’t need to give one. I was the one that ran out of the room first because I couldn’t handle the sudden news. But because I ran out, I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted, alone, and I realized a lot of things. One: it’s pretty chilly outside and I should’ve brought a jacket. Two: I should get back into running with you because I couldn’t even handle running to the park without dying a little inside.” Tao laughed at that, which gave Kris a little hope. “And three: running away for that hour made me realize that I actually love you, not just like, so because I love you, I’m fine with you going on the study abroad trip, and I really hope we can still stay together through that.”

When Kris finished talking, the room was silent. Tao’s eyes were wide open, and Suho didn’t say a word because he didn’t want to ruin the moment. “You… you love me??” Tao asked, he couldn’t believe what he heard.

Kris looked up and nodded at Tao, still extremely nervous because Tao never fully responded to if he loved Kris back yet or not, but before Kris could ask about anything, Tao threw the pillow onto Suho’s bed to give Kris a big hug. When Kris finally wrapped his arms around Tao’s lean body, Tao whispered into Kris’s ear, “I love you too.”

Kris pulled back from the hug to see Tao with a shy smile on his face; Kris moved in to give Tao a kiss, but Suho broke them up before they could do anything.

“This is my bed, remember??” Tao and Kris laughed. “You can finish your little whatever in the comfort of your own dorm okay?”

Tao and Kris got up and made their way to leave Suho’s room. Kris left the room first, while Tao stayed behind to talk to Suho a little more.

“Thanks for helping me out Suho; I wouldn’t have been able to talk to Kris without you,” Tao said to Suho.

Suho reached up to ruffle Tao’s hair. “It’s no problem. You two are adorable together, and both of you would basically be dead without me.”

Tao laughed, but then he realized how true the statement was, so he stopped laughing and cleared his throat. “Well, I gotta go now… thanks again for everything!”

Suho laughed at Tao’s cute reaction. “Okay then, bye Tao, and good luck!”

 

Kris and Tao walked back to the dorm room, hand-in-hand, without talking, because they both listened to Tao’s music together on his earphones. Tao knew that Kris was cold, so he gave Kris the scarf that Kris lent him a while back. 

Once they reached their dorm room and were warmed up, Tao turned to Kris and gave Kris a quick kiss on the lips. It was short, but still extremely sweet. Tao gave Kris another big hug and buried his face in Kris’s neck. “So you’re okay with me going abroad?” Tao mumbled into Kris’s neck.

Kris stroked Tao’s head and looked down at him. “Of course I’m okay with it. Just promise we’ll stay together through it all.”

Tao looked up at Kris with big hopeful eyes, “of course!” and gave Kris a longer and much sweeter kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically after this, it's all cute fluffy fluff


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omgosh I'm so sorry for being the worst writer ever  
> little bits of inspiration come here and there, it mainly comes down to me being kinda too lazy. I hope you still enjoy the taoris!

Over the past two weeks, Kris made sure to spend every minute of free time giving Tao lots of hugs and kisses. He even decided to move their two twin beds together so that they could sleep together each night.

_“Woah, Kris, what happened to our room?” Tao asked, looking at the two beds together._

_“I just wanted it to be easier to sleep together, because sleeping on one twin bed is kinda hard, considering how tall we both are,” Kris replied, looking away because Tao didn’t provide the intended reaction._

_Tao looked over at Kris and saw him looking a little worried. Tao immediately felt bad and gave him a big hug. “I really like it, so don’t worry about it, okay?”_

_Kris leaned in to the hug, thankful that Tao knew exactly what he wanted. “Okay.”_

Now there was only one day before Tao’s departure. Tao was almost fully packed and Kris was not totally emotionally prepared for Tao to leave. Kris sat on the bed while Tao looked through his suitcase to add some final clothing or take something out.

“We’ll skype every day right?” Kris asked.

“Of course, there’s only an hour difference so it won’t be hard.” Tao replied, folding in another Gucci button-down in his suitcase.

“You won’t fall in love with other dudes, right?” Kris asked, looking at his feet.

Tao rolled his eyes. “No duh, Kris. What kind of person do you think I am?” He asked, while deciding which earrings to bring.

“I was just making sure, Tao,” Kris said, smiling to himself.

Tao looked up at Kris and saw how worried he looked. Tao crawled over and knelt at Kris’s feet; he leaned up to cup Kris’s face. “You don’t need to worry about ANYTHING!” Tao said as he shook Kris’s face. “I’ll skype you every day. I love you too much to be looking at other people, got it? I know I’m not the most expressive person, and I’m really trying to work on that, but know that you don’t need to worry about anything, okay?”

Kris felt himself tear up, but he didn’t want to admit it, so he leaned down and gave Tao a kiss. When he was done, he wrapped his arms around Tao and brought him up for another hug. “Thanks Tao. I love you too.”

Tao smiled, jumped onto Kris’s lap, wrapped his legs around Kris, and brought his arms around Kris’s neck to snuggle more into the hug. They stayed like that for a couple of minutes, just enjoying each other’s company. Tao pulled away first to get back to packing. When Tao was all finished, he looked back to see Kris on the verge of tears.

“Oh Kris, stop, it’s not like I’m leaving forever!” Tao exclaimed, trying to get Kris to calm down. He never expected Kris to get so emotional; watching Kris start crying started to make Tao want to cry too. Tao sat back on the bed and brought out the little present he got for Kris. “Here, something to remember me by while I’m gone.”

Kris opened it up to find an MP3 player; he was a little confused at first, until he saw the same earphones that he and Tao used to listen to music.

“The MP3 just has all of the songs we listened to together, and a bunch of the new ones that I’m working on that aren’t one hundred percent finished.” Tao looked away because he revealed that Kris was going to be the first one to listen to all of his new songs, but as always, Kris was a little too dense to realize at first.

“You haven’t finished them yet? Then why are you showing them to me now??” Kris asked, as he kept scrolling through everything.

Tao rolled his eyes and gently smacked Kris’s head. “Because I want you to be the first one to listen to my songs, okay?” Tao mumbled.

Kris looked up away from the MP3 and looked up at Tao. “Really??”

Tao stuffed his face into a pillow to groan loudly and to stop Kris from seeing his face turn red.  

Kris laughed and pulled the pillow away from Tao’s face, so he could give Tao another big hug. “What did I do to deserve someone so cute?”

“Quit calling me cute, I’m manly and hot goddamnit.” Tao mumbled into Kris shoulder. He sighed and looked up at Kris, “even though I really want to do this study abroad thing, I’m really going to miss you.”

Kris decided now would be a good time to give Tao the little gift he prepared, before he completely bursts into tears in front of Tao. “I know you really like your earrings so I just got you these.”

Tao never expected Kris to know about his earring obsession, since it was usually shadowed by his obsession with his clothes. When Tao opened the box, it was a simple pair of earrings in the shape of a cross, but it was real gold; he immediately took his studs out of his ears and put in his new earrings. He got off the bed to check out how they looked on his ears. Kris stood behind him, and Tao immediately felt more uncomfortable than he should’ve been when putting his earrings in, because of Kris’s gaze. It was sharp, almost piercing, but Tao could feel the absolute affection in Kris’s eyes, which made him turn around and give him another big hug.

“I love them,” said Tao into Kris’s shirt. “I’ll wear them every day I’m at Korea, just for you.”

Kris smiled and look down at Tao, while patting his hair (he was just glad Tao didn’t ruin the moment by swatting his hand away, because Kris knew how Tao felt about people touching his hair). “I’m really going to miss you.”

Tao’s tears immediately came out in a waterfall and didn’t stop flowing. Kris didn’t even care about his shirt being soaked because he started crying too. “You’re one of my closest friends, even though I found you annoying at first.” Tao and Kris both laughed at that, but Tao kept going. “I’ve always had trouble making friends because everyone thought I was creepy and intimidating and yet you’ve accepted me for who I am and you’ve managed to fall in love with me, even though you could do so much better.”

Kris opened his mouth to argue at that, but Tao kept on talking. “I’m so thankful that I’ve met you, even if you’re super shit at music theory; I’d rather tutor for five more years than be separated from you for longer than this trip.”

Kris separated himself from Tao and looked at him with wide eyes because of how surprised he was. He gave Tao a hard kiss before burying his head into Tao’s shoulder to cry more. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

They both moved back to their combined bed to go to sleep. Kris held Tao super tight, and Tao didn’t mind because he needed enough cuddling to last three long months.

 

The next day came too quickly. Kris helped Tao bring his two suitcases down to the front of the campus for the van to pick him up and take him to the airport.

“We’ll talk every day right?” Kris asked, looking down at his feet.

Tao put down his bag on the ground to bring Kris into a big hug for one last time before he got on the van. “Of course, you big dummy. I love you.”

Kris leaned into the hug and took a deep breath to remember Tao before he left. “I love you too.”

Tao stepped back before the driver of the van could make any awkward comments and started to load the van. When Tao got in the van, he gave one last sad wave to Kris before the van was out of the way. He saw Kris just staring back with a very intense expression; Tao wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but whatever it was, it was enough to make Tao start crying again.

 

Once Kris was sure Tao was gone, he turned around to go back to their dorm room. He walked in and took a look around. It felt so big without Tao in it; he wasn’t there at his desk like he always was, working on his music, or homework. Kris flopped right onto their shared bed, without bothering to change his clothes. He knew Tao would complain about that; he laughed out loud to nothing, and looked at the side where Tao usually slept in. It felt so unbearably empty; Kris took Tao’s pillow and curled up next to it. It still smelled of Tao’s clean scent, and that triggered Kris’s tears to fall once again.

 

Tao’s flight didn’t take too long, about two hours. Tao didn’t sleep much, because he still ridden with sadness from leaving. When Tao landed, he looked around for a sign that indicated to where he was supposed to go. There were a couple of other university students that got into the same study abroad program, but none of them made an effort to get close to Tao either because they were intimidated by his looks, or because they already had friends to chat with.

Tao’s Korean was terrible, so he stood on the middle of the departure floor looking around for any sign to give him a way to go: his name, the university name, other university students, anything. Suddenly he noticed a pretty short person jumping up and down to be taller than the people standing in front of him with a sign that said Tao’s university name. Tao immediately walked towards him with all of his stuff and tried to communicate with him.

“Uhh,” Tao started, unsure what to say. He knew Koreans were very formal, always adding honorifics (even though this person looked almost like a twelve year old, Tao might as well use an honorific that was older than he was, better safe than sorry), and they bowed a lot, so Tao bowed deeply and said, “Oppa, hello,” in his best possible Korean.

The boy looked up at Tao when he stood back up and started laughing widely. “Oppa is for when girls talk to older guys, you should’ve called me hyung,” he said, in Chinese, for Tao to understand.

Tao felt a wave of embarrassment. “I’m so sorry!” Tao bowed again.

The boy kept on laughing. “You don’t need to bow like that oh my gosh; it’s fine. This may be Korea, but we’re still in the 20th century. My name is Xiumin,” he said, extending his hand out for Tao to shake.

“Oh, I’m Tao,” Tao replied, still feeling embarrassed.

“Hi Tao! I’m basically going to be your guide, security guard, roommate, and best friend for the next three months. All of your other classmates got their guides too, so you won’t see them again for a while; it’s just going to be us and music, got it?” Xiumin said, as he grabbed one of Tao’s suitcases and started walking through the airport.

“Got it,” Tao replied, in his best Korean.

“Yeah, your Korean is going to need a bit of work too, but what better place to learn it than in Korea itself?” Xiumin said, asked stopped in front of a car.

 “All the Korean I know is from watching Korean dramas,” Tao admitted.

Xiumin let out another laugh. “Well you should be fine here, don’t worry. There’s lots of foreign people that work to become idols at my company, so we have tons of good Korean classes to learn from.”

Tao nodded. “That would be good for me.”

Small conversations about Xiumin’s company and Tao’s university continue between the both of them in the car until they reach the dorming area. Xiumin opens the door to a room while exclaiming, “home sweet home!”

It was a simple room with book shelves, two desks and two beds, one for Tao and the other for Xiumin. Xiumin’s side of the room was already decorated with posters of popular idols, and his bookshelves were lined with manga, toys and CDs.

Xiumin brought all of Tao’s luggage into the room. “Want to start unpacking? It’s around 4, so we can unpack now, head to dinner, and then I have to take you to a meeting with my manager to discuss all of the activities happening for your program.”

Tao felt a little overwhelmed but gave a serious nod. “Okay.”

Unpacking was a lot easier with Xiumin’s help. After that, Xiumin decided to give Tao the best introduction to Korean food and took him to a Korean barbeque restaurant. After Tao burned two precious pieces of meat, Xiumin grabbed the tongs away from Tao and did all the cooking himself.

Once Tao was filled with savory meat, Xiumin dragged Tao to the actual company office where Tao would get a briefing on the entire study abroad program.

Xiumin led Tao through the building, pointing at different dance rooms and recording rooms, until they stopped in front of a conference room. Xiumin left Tao in there and waited outside of the door for Tao to receive all the information.

“Hi Tao! Your Korean probably isn’t that good right?” asked the man inside the room, in Korean. Tao didn’t really Korean, but he could decipher that much and nodded. The man laughed and pointed at a woman in the room. The other person opened her mouth, “I’m your translator for today, and maybe other days too, but everyone is hoping that you’ll learn a bunch by the end of your stay.” She said in Chinese.

Tao gave a serious nod. “Okay.”

The man explained that he was the manager of a major boy band in Korea right now, and that Tao would be writing music for a new group that will be debuting near the end of Tao’s stay.

Tao immediately felt extreme pressure. The manager noticed and let out a laugh. “Don’t worry, your professor let me know how talented you were at composition, so that’s why I’m giving you such a challenging task. You won’t be alone, don’t worry. The other producers will be around to give you advice.”

The translator stated exactly what the manager said, but it didn’t really lessen the pressure. “I have to write everything in Korean though, right??”

The manager nodded. “Yep, but you’ll be starting lessons soon, which will count as credit for your university, and watch the process of making music for a group that is having a comeback extremely soon.”

Tao gave a slow nod. He didn’t really know how this entire process would work, but it seems like it was done before.

“Don’t worry. Xiumin outside may look young, but he’s actually twenty-four years old; so he has plenty of experience in these study abroad programs. Don’t hesitate to ask him questions; he also enjoys writing music.” Tao’s eyes almost popped out of his head when he learned how old Xiumin was, but the manager continued talking. “Your formal schedule will be mailed to your dorm room tomorrow morning, so be ready to work starting tomorrow at 7 in the morning!”

Tao gave a nod. Seven in the morning was pretty early (read: really early), but Tao would learn to deal with the new Korean standards. Xiumin retrieved Tao from the conference room and they walked back to the dorm.

It was already pretty late, almost one in the morning, when they reached the dorm room.

“Showers are outside, the third door on your left. No one else should be using them right now, so you’ll be able to hop right in.”

Tao grabbed his clothes for the shower, but when he stepped in the hall, it was extremely dark, and Tao knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it. He turned back into the dorm room. Xiumin looked up at him with big eyes. “You okay? I thought you were going to shower.”

Tao looked down at his feet because he felt extremely awkward saying his next few words. “Uh… this is gonna sound really stupid, but uhh… I’m scared.”

“Of what?” Xiumin asked, as he started to sit up on his bed.

“Of...” Tao took a deep breath. “Showeringalonelateatnight.”

“Oh… so does that mean you want me to shower with you?” Xiumin asked.

“I mean, if that’s too much, you can just wait outside of the shower while I shower,” Tao said, as he felt his cheeks warm up.

“Ah, well it saves time if I shower with you, so I don’t mind. I have to be a good hyung after all, don’t I?” Xiumin said, getting up to grab clothes for the shower.

Tao laughed. “Yeah, you are the best hyung.”

Xiumin laughed and looped his arm through Tao’s and walked them both towards the bathroom.

The shower went by relatively quickly, and they were both back in the dorm room quickly.

While Tao was fiddling with his phone, he remembered he had to call Kris; he missed his warmth so much already.

“Uh, Xiumin, I have to call a… friend right now, is that okay?” Tao asked, a little guilty that he didn’t call Kris his boyfriend.

“Yeah that’s fine,” Xiumin said from his bed.

Tao got his earphones out, so Xiumin wouldn’t hear all of their conversation; that would’ve been REALLY awkward.

There was a one hour difference between here and his university, but he’s pretty sure Kris wouldn’t sleep before Tao called him, or at least he hopes Kris wouldn’t sleep before Tao called him.

The ringer rang two times before Kris picked up. Kris’s face appeared on the phone, it looks like he was half asleep; Tao let out a laugh. “Hi Kris.” Tao said.

Kris’s face immediately woke up as he sat up to turn the light on higher. “TAO!! I’VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!”

Tao half laughed and half grimaced at how loud Kris was. “I’ve missed you too, Kris.”

“How’s Korea??” Kris asked, clearly excited to see Tao again.

“It’s great so far!” Tao explained the task he had for the next three months.

As Tao went on, Kris just had a smile on his face. He loved when Tao suddenly talked and didn’t stop, because it was rare for Tao to be so open; however, Tao’s task sounded extremely stressful and time-consuming.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay, Tao? This sounds super difficult… but I know you’ll do a fantastic job.” Kris said, with a smile.

“Thanks, Kris,” Tao replied, smiling so hard that his cheeks started hurting a little. “I miss you so much.” Tao said with a small voice, smile disappearing and tears coming back a little again.

“Kris reached out towards the camera, as if to grab Tao’s hand. “I really miss you too. Don’t cry Tao; it hurts me to see you at a new place like this and not enjoying yourself.”

Tao bit his lips and nodded, trying to keep himself together.

“Promise me you’ll eat a lot of new food there for me!” Kris said, trying to lift Tao’s mood up.

“I already ate real Korean barbeque without you!” Tao replied with a laugh.

“How’d you afford that??”

Tao began talking about Xiumin and how helpful he was.

“You’re not replacing me, right?” Kris asked, with mock-seriousness in his voice.”

Tao laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll introduce you to him soon.”

Tao gave out a big yawn; Kris laughed, but soon copied the action because of how late it was. “We should really sleep.” Kris said.

Tao nodded, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah. Good night Kris.”

Kris smiled at the camera. “Good night Tao, I love you!”

“I love you too!!” Tao replied. He waited for Kris to hang up first before falling back on his bed to let a few tears fall out. He felt a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. Tao looked up to see Xiumin, holding a tissue.

“That was more than a friend, right?” Xiumin asked, handing Tao the tissue.

Tao started wiping his tears away and nodded. “Yeah.” He croaked out.

They both sat next to each other on Tao’s bed; Xiumin rubbed circles on Tao’s back to try and relax Tao. “It’s okay, I don’t need details. Just know that I’m here to help you out, okay?”

“Thanks Xiumin, you really are a great hyung.” Tao said.

“I already knew that.” Xiumin replied.

Tao took a deep breath. “Kris is my boyfriend, my roommate, and my first close friend in my life, so it’s kind of hard to be separated from him right now.” Xiumin gave a nod to urge Tao to keep going. “I really miss him…”

“It’s okay Tao. This study abroad program will be over before you know it. I’ve had other university students come in and act like this with their friends, maybe not on the same level as you, but they eventually get over it because of how much work is done here, so don’t worry.” Xiumin said, continuing his rubbing to relax Tao.

“Ah, well that’s good. Thanks so much Xiumin, I don’t think I would be able to survive here without you.” Tao said.

Xiumin gave Tao a hug. “It’s no problem, but from now on, call me Xiumin-hyung.”

Tao gave a laugh. “Okay, Xiumin-hyung.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think Xiumin's Chinese ever got this good, but let's just say it did. And I'm not 100% if this is how study abroad works at all, hopefully it's kind of similar. Anyways, I hope you're liking this story as much as I am, surprisingly.


End file.
